The thesis follows the relation between gender and language use of individuals for whom German is a foreign language. It is based on the hypothesis, that the language of men and women shows some typical characteristics. On the background of the development of feminist or gender linguistics the thesis gives an overview of the different concepts, which are trying to explain the relationship between gender and language. Presented are also specific language characteristic of men and women. Further an important theoretical basis is the theory of social construction of reality. Following the theory the thesis examines how are the individuals being styled into their respective gender roles and what influence this stylization on their language use has. The practical part of the thesis is based on a research conducted by an online-questionnaire. Based on data collected from individuals with German as a foreign language the thesis studies perception of a gender-specific language on one hand, as well as the own language stylization of the respondents into their respective gender roles on the other. The thesis looks for an answer to the question, whether and to what extent the use of a foreign language affects the language construction of an own gender identity. Key words: gender, communicative domain, identity, German...

Reality TV dating shows have increased in popularity during the last decade. The producers of this kind of reality TV tend to claim that their shows represent a true portrayal of social reality. Viewing the world from a social constructivist perspective, social reality and behavior are understood as social constructions. From that perspective the content of dating shows are viewed as constructions shaped by, for example, the producers. The purpose of this study is to examine how love ideals and gender roles are constructed within the Swedish dating shows Farmers wants a wife [Bonde söker fru] and Faith, hope and love [Tro, hopp och kärlek].Further this study aims to compare the constructions from each show. To investigate this, an adjusted version of Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis has been used. There is not much previous sociological research done concerning reality TV in general, or dating TV more specifically. However, other disciplines have investigated these fields more. For example, several feminist studies have shown that dating TV shows enforces stereotypic gender roles, and a research study in psychology has shown that dating shows may affect attitudes toward sexual behavior among youths. The study shows that the constructions about love and gender roles are similar in both dating shows. In the shows constructed ideal of love, intimacy is one of the most important things. This love ideal could be understood in the context of Anthony Giddens theory of the pure relationship. The gender role constructions in the shows contain contradictions. In many aspects the constructed gender roles reflect upon the show’s love ideal, in sense of equality and the importance of mutual commitment to the dating process. But in some ways there are more traditional gender role expressions, for example women’s criticism towards passivity amongst men. / Tv-sända dejtingprogram har blivit en alltmer populär företeelse de senaste åren. Produktionerna bakom denna form av dokusåpor anser ofta att programmen speglar en sann social verklighet. Utifrån ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv förstås samhället och socialt beteende som sociala konstruktioner. Med ett sådant perspektiv ses skildringar i dejtingprogram som en konstruktion formad av bland annat produktionen. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur kärlek och könsroller konstrueras i de svenska upplagorna av dejtingprogrammen Bonde söker fru och Tro, hopp och kärlek. Vidare syftar studien till att göra en jämförelse av programmens konstruktioner rörande kärlek och könsroller. För att undersöka detta har studien utförts enligt en anpassning av Norman Faircloughs kritiska diskursanalys. En översikt av tidigare forskning visar att det inte finns mycket sociologisk forskning på området dokusåpor i allmänhet, och dejtingprogram mer specifikt. Angränsande discipliner har dock utforskat problemområdet mer. Bland annat har flera feministiska studier visat att stereotypa könroller förstärks i dejtingprogram och en studie i psykologi visade att ungdomars konsumtion av dejtingprogram kan påverka deras attityder kring sexuellt beteende. Denna studie visar att de båda programmens konstruktioner, gällande kärlek och könsroller, har stora likheter. I dejtingprogrammens genomsyrande kärleksideal betonas bland annat vikten av intimitet. Detta ideal kan förstås utifrån Anthony Giddens begrepp det rena förhållandet. Studien visar även att könrollskonstruktionerna i programmen präglas av en slitning. Till stor del går könsrollerna i linje med dejtingprogrammens kärlekskonstruktioner, då könsrollerna utmärks av en jämlikhetssträvan och vikten av ömsesidigt engagemang i dejtingen. Samtidigt innehåller könsrollkonstruktionerna bland annat kvinnors kritik mot passiva män, vilket kan förstås som ett uttryck för mer traditionella könsroller.

The phenomenon of panic is one of the most unedifying experiences to inflict the human condition. It is a globally-recognised problem regularly encountered in psychotherapeutic practice. Whilst it is thought that distressing psychological and social (‘psychosocial’) problems might help account for this experience, the precise role they play - particularly in first onset - remains difficult to fathom. For example, whilst there is evidence to suggest that stress related to an individual’s family and work life, marital circumstances, age and gender appear linked with initial episodes of panic, these and many associated stressors people endure remain largely under-researched. Following an inquiry aim that recognises the social construction of reality, this research offers an insight into my first experience of panic attack (my being both a panic sufferer and psychotherapist). The aim was to identify an ‘invisible cord’ (e.g. a series of causally linked stressful life events) related to my panic. These events are typically thought to be found in the twelve months prior to first onset and hold important clues to an individual’s recovery. Hence my research question was: ‘What sense can be made of the invisible cord of events leading to my first experience of panic attack’? Using analytical autoethnographic methods to guide this research, significant personal events were discovered and are presented here in the findings. The earliest events uncovered would stretch back far longer than twelve months; with a series of five scenarios plotted from childhood to my mid-forties. To ensure that this research remained an exercise in critical thinking, each event was then examined alongside broader psychosocial theory and frameworks; offering a connected analysis of this first attack and contingent factors. A summary follows, ‘pulling together’ aspects of this undertaking and offering implications for practice. For example, having only made visible elements of my stressful cord by means of the analytical methods at my disposal (including use of collage and timelines) I suggest that such tools might routinely help other panic sufferers in retracing their past. Equally, in learning that my (often confused) Christian faith was implicated in this panic, I advance that we, as therapists, must remain vigilant to matters of client spirituality: noting that traditional forms of religious guidance are receding in an increasingly sceptical UK society. The thesis concludes with a personal reflection that aims to facilitate a deeper understanding of my research journey.

<p>This study examines the representation of women and men through the quantitative analysisof quotations in three Swedish newspapers - Dagens nyheter, Aftonbladet and Barometern.The roles in which they appear have also been recorded, for example; managerial, political orparental. In addition to the main study, this report analyzes how often women and men appearin the respective photos of the articles examined. In total, 36 newspapers were included in thisstudy (12 of each paper) which resulted in a data set of 1453 articles and 1296 photos.The main aim of this study was to measure the degree of equality and in what differing roleswomen and men appear when being interviewed. Secondly, this study aims to highlight anydifference between women and men appearing in text and photo. The results were comparedacross the three newspapers examined with established theories on gender and feminism,equality, social construction, representation and media power being applied to understand andanalyse these results.The study shows patterns of an unequal distribution between the representation of women andmen in the three Swedish newspapers examined. In the articles where the individuals could beidentified by gender, approximately 65 percent of the persons interviewed were male and 32percent female (the remainder were not identified). Men were more likely to be quoted inexpert or managerial roles where as it was more common for woman to appear under thefamily and consumer headings. However, it was more common for women to appear in photothan in text, with 60 percent of the photos examined containing men and 40 percent women.</p>

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This study deals with the issue of entrepreneurship and gender. A central part is to understand how entrepreneurial opportunities and identities are constructed and linked to each other. The aim is to increase our understanding about entrepreneurial processes, identification and role creation. A gender structure is a premise and it is ar-gued that norms, values and meanings in society affect women that are entrepreneurs in the sense that they are seen as “the other” and are compared to a male norm. Entre-preneurship is described as opportunity construction rather than opportunity recogni-tion or opportunity finding. The empirical context is drawn from interviews with 15 en-trepreneurs, all women from the county of Gävleborg in Sweden, who have left a job in the public sector in order to start new private ventures. The main contribution of this study is an increased understanding of entrepreneu-rial identification processes, from a gender perspective. One part of these processes is resistance that the entrepreneurs meet and practice. This study identifies the strong presence of a male discourse and describes how women, who are entrepreneurs deals with that. It is argued that there is a need to open up the concept entrepreneurship, to a more gender neutral one, in order to make it easier for women who are entrepreneurs to identify themselves as entrepreneurs and not just ‘female entrepreneurs’. An empiri-cal contribution is a description of how different and contradictory identification proc-esses are going on at the same time. Marginalization and identification processes illus-trates that if entrepreneurs feel that they are not taken seriously in their attempt to cre-ate business practices that fit with their preferences, a struggle for recognition emerges. This study shows that processes of marginalization and role creation are intertwined in different ways that affect women who are entrepreneurs. A methodological contribu-tion is the deconstruction of interviews in order to understand how processes of imita-tion and reinterpretation exists as simultaneous and parallel events. The findings are presented in five recurrent themes: break away, identification, po-larization, marginalization and resistance. The themes are used in order to increase the understanding about how the entrepreneurs create contexts for their ventures and how this context can be understood as an arena where entrepreneurial opportunities are constructed. Three aspects, all related to gender, of resistance are described; resistance that the entrepreneurs have met during the time as employees in the public sector, re-sistance that the entrepreneurs have met during the process of starting their ventures and finally, resistance that the entrepreneurs practice in meetings with male norms.

Ongoing development of professional identity is critical for pre-service and in-service elementary music teachers to grow and evolve as music educators over the course of their careers. This study was designed to gain insight into the factors surrounding the formation and ongoing development of professional identity of 4 elementary music teachers in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Narrative in both design and approach, the stories of 4 individual elementary music educators, each at different points along their careers paths, were told using their own words. My personal narrative was also added to the discussion. The participants were known to me in advance of the study and invited to be part of the study because they are all reflective practitioners who were comfortable sharing their stories of teaching music with me. All participants were women, which parallels the reality of the profile of elementary music teachers in Ontario. Over a period of 4 months, I met with each participant for semi-structured interviews and in-school observations. Interviews were recorded using an audio recorder and later transcribed and verified by participants. Field notes were kept during classroom observations and supplemented by journal writings. Informal conversations, via telephone, email, or face-to-face further supplemented the data collected. The data was analyzed by reading and rereading, looking for themes, commonalities and differences of the participants. The results of the study are not meant to be generalized to a larger population, but to provide rich illustrations which may lead to common understanding. The identities of these participants, and my identity, were first influenced through early experiences with music and teaching in the home, at school and in the community. As the participants began university undergraduate programs, both positive and negative experiences informed their developing identity as did experiences in pre-service and in-service teaching. The research findings and recommendations of this study have implications in several areas, including: issues of teacher identity, ongoing professional development and, pre-service and in-service education.

Composition instructors agree writing instruction should focus on helping students become better writers. Pedagogical commonality, however, ends here. Composition instructors disagree about what constitutes good writing, what student should be learning, and how best to approach a composition classroom. I argue that pedagogical diversity among composition instructors is detrimental to the discipline of Rhetoric and Composition, because it has contributed to the public perception that we have no teachable content. Focusing around the removal of and reintegration of rhetoric from American college English departments, I argue composition studies and the rhetorical tradition have historically been viewed as separate disciplines. This project will illustrate that composition studies needs to reconnect to the rhetorical tradition in order formulate a unified practical pedagogical identity. With a unified pedagogical identity, composition studies can finally claim it has a teachable and defendable content: the production of better critical thinking skills.

Ongoing development of professional identity is critical for pre-service and in-service elementary music teachers to grow and evolve as music educators over the course of their careers. This study was designed to gain insight into the factors surrounding the formation and ongoing development of professional identity of 4 elementary music teachers in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Narrative in both design and approach, the stories of 4 individual elementary music educators, each at different points along their careers paths, were told using their own words. My personal narrative was also added to the discussion. The participants were known to me in advance of the study and invited to be part of the study because they are all reflective practitioners who were comfortable sharing their stories of teaching music with me. All participants were women, which parallels the reality of the profile of elementary music teachers in Ontario. Over a period of 4 months, I met with each participant for semi-structured interviews and in-school observations. Interviews were recorded using an audio recorder and later transcribed and verified by participants. Field notes were kept during classroom observations and supplemented by journal writings. Informal conversations, via telephone, email, or face-to-face further supplemented the data collected. The data was analyzed by reading and rereading, looking for themes, commonalities and differences of the participants. The results of the study are not meant to be generalized to a larger population, but to provide rich illustrations which may lead to common understanding. The identities of these participants, and my identity, were first influenced through early experiences with music and teaching in the home, at school and in the community. As the participants began university undergraduate programs, both positive and negative experiences informed their developing identity as did experiences in pre-service and in-service teaching. The research findings and recommendations of this study have implications in several areas, including: issues of teacher identity, ongoing professional development and, pre-service and in-service education.

Environmental challenges do not exist around by themselves. They are constructed andput in our mind by the key stakeholders, who draw public attention to certain issues. People experience the world through the words of others. Construction of environmental concerns is an ever ongoing process, and we need to be aware about things that can change. In the 60s the world was concerned about limited number of issues, whilst today the planet seems to shout from pain, though in fact amount of problems have hardly raised. It is environmental organizations’ desert that people managed to raise their awareness about the world. This study exposes social constructs of environmental challenges created and narrated through social media by two leading environmental organizations, Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature. For this purpose, theories of social constructionism and agenda setting serve as the main theoretical framework. Therefore, most actively social media used by ENGOs was identified to be Facebook. The insight to the topic was provided by the content analysis of status updates from both organizations’ fan pages for the period from September 2009 to May 2012. It showed that social constructs of environmental challenges are not equally distributed in the world and number of concerns is disregarded. ENGOs do hope that regular citizens can contribute to sustainability, by giving real support to the projects which aim to have impact on policy makers. Our awareness let changes on the governmental level happen, as ‘when ENGOs speak, people debate, and policy makershear’. Thereby, through media construction of challenges solutions to them are articulated as well.