The Swedish debate surrounding the Swedish and European welcoming of refugees has during the last couple of years engaged actors from all spheres of society. One of the prominent actors in this debate has been archbishop Antje Jackelén who has contributed with articles on the issue together with members of the church board as well as the other bishops in the Church of Sweden. These articles have been published on the debate pages of four major newspapers; Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen and Aftonbladet. The aim of this research is to study the way leaders in the Church of Sweden frame the welcoming of refugees and asylum seekers in these newspapers between 2014-2016. By using a qualitative frame analysis inspired by a theory of framing used in social movement research (Benford & Snow, 2000) the study will focus primarily on motivational framing, i.e. the way in which authors set out to inspire their audience to take action in a certain issue. In three of the articles collective action frames are identified, in which collective identities are constructed and where the writers stress the importance for people to come together and act towards a more humane way of handling the refugee situation. Another aim of the essay is to study the way in which the Church of Sweden is presented as an actor within the frames used in the articles. The analysis shows how the church is presented as an experienced organisation, driven by the Christian faith to take action in the face of suffering. Finally, the result is analysed through the mediatisation of religion theory, using the concept of three media functions; conduit, environment and language (Hjarvard, 2016). The analysis shows how the newspapers, by publishing the articles, can be interpreted to function as both conduits and environments for the religious information and messages present in the texts. Concerning the third function, media as language, the debate articles are interpreted as living up to the criteria of news value despite the use of religious imagery and language. However, the method and empirical material of this study did not allow for any conclusions regarding how the logic of debate articles have been affecting the way in which leaders in the Church of Sweden debate the welcoming of refugees.

Denna uppsats syftar till att kartlägga två projekt inom två hjälporganisationer: Xola Educare i Contribution To Opportunities och Digniti Omnia i Svenska kyrkan. Studien visar hur projekten behandlar fem utvalda projektledande kunskapsområden: projektmål, intressenter, krav, tider och kommunikation. Vår frågeställning är: På vilket sätt tillämpas projektledningstekniker vid hantering av: projektmål, intressenter, krav, tider och kommunikation inom hjälporganisationers projekt? Vår utgångspunkt för denna studie är att det finns skillnader i hur nyetablerade och etablerade hjälporganisationer tillämpar kunskapsområden för planeringen av sina projekt. Studien utgår även ifrån att praktiken skiljer sig från hur den klassiska projektledningsläran beskriver de centrala delarna inom utvalda kunskapsområden. Studien har genomförts med en kvalitativ metod, med intervjuer och dokumentanalys som metod för datainsamling i syfte till att kartlägga projektens nuvarande struktur utifrån kunskapsområden i relation till tidigare forskning.  Tidigare forskning om projekt inom hjälporganisationer visar en trend om ineffektivitet och mindre lyckat resultat än framgångsrika projekt. Projektledarens kompetens och erfarenhet har visat sig spela en roll i detta. Projektledande kunskapsområden har i viss utsträckning anammats men har fortfarande en stor utvecklingspotential och behöver anpassas till den kontext som ideellt baserade hjälporganisationer lever i.  Kartläggningen i sin helhet visar att nyetablerade hjälporganisationer inte använder sig lika mycket av projektledande kunskapsområdena som en mer etablerad hjälporganisation gör. Att praktiken skiljer sig från teorin visar även kartläggningen genom brister i strukturerade metodiska tillvägagångssätt. Verkligheten överensstämmer inte alltid med teorin då individer är föränderliga och projekt är rörliga företeelser som behöver foga sig efter varandra och deras kontext. Kartläggningen och studiens resultat visar att båda projekten har formulerade projektmål i dokumentform. Delprojektledarna har inte genomfört någon intressentanalys i enlighet uppsatsens teori men har en stor medvetenhet om sina intressenter. Kraven som projekten ämnar uppfylla formulerades vid projektstart. Projekten har ingen strukturerad tipsplan innehållande de teoretiska projektledningsteknikerna. Båda projekten har i enlighet med teorin strukturerade mötesformer. / The purpose of this essay is to conduct a survey of two projects within two Non-profit organizations: Xola Educare in Contribution To Opportunities and Digniti Omnia in The Church of Sweden. The study intends to investigate how the projects deal with the five selected areas of knowledge: project goals, stakeholders, requirements, timetable and communication. The essay originates from the research question of: How are knowledge areas applied to structuring projects in Non-profit organizations? Our starting point for this study is that there are differences in how newly established and already established Non-profit organizations will apply knowledge areas for the planning of their projects. The study also assumes that practice differs from how the essay's theory describes knowledge areas. The study has been conducted with a qualitative method, with interviews and document analysis as a method of data collection for the purpose of mapping the current structure of the projects based on knowledge areas in relation to the theory. Previous research on projects driven by Non-profit organizations has illustrated a trend of inefficiency and unsuccessful projects rather than successful. The project managers' skills and maturity are revealed to play a key part for their success. Knowledge areas have been used to a certain extent but still have a great development potential and need to be adapted to the context of Non-profit organizations.  The survey shows that newly established Non-profit organizations do not use as many project knowledge areas as a more established Non-profit organization does, and that theory and practice differ in these two Non-profit organizations. The survey also shows that reality differs from the theory through shortcomings in structured methodological approaches. Reality does not always match the theory when individuals and projects are changing; they need to follow one another and its context. The survey and the results of the study show that both projects have formulated project goals in document form. The project has not conducted any stakeholder analysis according to the essay theory but has a high level of awareness about its stakeholders. The requirements that the projects aim to meet were formulated at the start of the project. The projects have no structured time plan containing the theoretical project management techniques. Both the projects have structured forms of meeting according to the theory.

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This paper examines the Church of Sweden’s changing approach to same-sex marriage from a queer theoretical and queer theological perspective. A discourse analytical method examines the previous discourse and how it has come to change over time. The analysis takes place among the statements that priests, bishops, and other theologians have expressed in the public debate, the Church’s theological committee and the church meetings that take place every year. The study also addresses the changes and explanations of the new Church Handbook based on a theological statement. The queer theoretical basis is based on Michel Foucault and Judith Butler's foundations for the theory and culminates in two explanatory models. The study's stated aim of investigating the Discourse of the Church of Sweden also lands in how the Swedish Church responds to National Socialist and value conservative forces in society such as the Sweden Democrats.The Church of Sweden’s policy to flag with the rainbow flag and meet homophobic expressions in both the society as in its own ranks.

This thesis has studied how the decision of the Church of Sweden to introduce Child Impact Assessments has changed the way children and adolescents are mentioned in Pastoral instructions. Using quantitative and qualitative content analysis and the theory of implementation, it has studied how often children and adolescents are mentioned and how the rights of the child are concretized in the latest versions of the Pastoral instructions in the 13 Cathedral Parishes. Central to this study are the three foundational perspectives on the rights of the child: a Child’s-rights perspective, a Children’s perspective, and A Child’s perspective.   The thesis concludes that while the overall frequency of references to children and adolescents in the Pastoral instructions has doubled since the introduction of Child Impact Assessments, the parishes have not satisfactorily considered the rights of the child, since only a few instructions have made use of the three perspectives. The thesis argues that, in order for the parishes to fully implement the Church’s decision, and to better consider the rights of the child in their future work, there is a need for educative efforts towards staff in the parishes.

The main purpose of this study is to find out how active clerics within the Church of Sweden experience working under the clerical vow of silence, which is mandatory for all clerical members practising individual pastoral care within the church organisation. Another purpose is to find out whether there are any occurring ethical or moral dilemmas related to the clerics’ experiences of their vow of silence. This study was conducted using semi-structured qualitative interviews with seven clerics from different parishes, mainly from the Stockholm region, with a minimum of five years of clerical work experience. The participants were asked how they regard the clerical vow of silence and if they ever considered breaking the vow during their careers. Furthermore, the participants were asked how the clerical vow of silence affects their everyday lives. The applied method for this study is the narrative analysis with a thematic approach, as described by Riessman (2008). This resulted in five recurrent main themes deriving from the interviewees answers to our main questions. Our result implies that the participants regard the clerical vow of silence as important, albeit being described as difficult to contain and cope with, thus giving rise to morally and ethically related dilemmas for some of the participants. / Huvudsyftet med denna studie är att ta reda på hur yrkesverksamma präster inom Svenska kyrkan upplever att arbeta med den absoluta tystnadsplikten, som omfattar Svenska kyrkans präster inom den enskilda själavården. Ytterligare ett syfte är att ta reda på huruvida det uppstår etiska eller moraliska dilemman i samband med deras erfarenheter av den absoluta tystnadsplikten. Genom semistrukturerade kvalitativa intervjuer har dessa utförts med sju präster från olika församlingar i Sverige, främst i Stockholmsregionen, under förutsättningen att de har varit yrkesverksamma i minst fem år. Informanterna har tillfrågats hur de betraktar den absoluta tystnadsplikten och om de någonsin har funderat kring att bryta den. Vidare har informanterna även frågats hur den absoluta tystnadsplikten påverkar dem i deras vardagsliv. Genom att använda Riessmans (2008) tematiska narrativa analys har fem huvudteman uppkommit. Dessa teman utgör resultat utifrån informanternas svar kopplade till studiens frågeställningar. Resultatet visar att informanterna upplever den absoluta tystnadsplikten som meningsfull, samtidigt som den beskrivs som svårhanterlig och således har givit upphov till etiska och moraliska dilemman för vissa av informanterna.

This essay is about the discussion concerning graduation celebrations in The Swedish Church. Since this discussion is recurrent in the media when it is getting close to the end of the term in the Swedish schools, it is interesting to see how people choose to discuss this issue. This essay will look at how this issue is discussed within the Swedish school and the Swedish church. My research questions that I will use are: How is the issue of the church as a venue for the end of school year discussed in the Swedish Church's newspaper and in the Teachers' Union's trade magazine, Läraren.  This will be done through a content analysis of articles taken from these two newspapers where they discuss the church as a venue for the graduation. I will use a secularization theory developed by the sociologist of religion Thomas Luckmann in which he assumes that one can look at religion from two perspectives, church-oriented religion, and individual-centered religion. The survey in this paper shows that most people are in favor of using the church as a venue for the graduation’s celebrations and that they see it more as a tradition to be there such as something religious.

Syftet med denna studie är att ge kunskap om hur diakoner i Svenska kyrkan upplever att deras yrkesidentitet påverkas av spänningen mellan att vara yrkesutbildad socionom och att vara kallad till diakon av Gud och kyrkan. Studien baserades på åtta kvalitativa, semistrukturerade intervjuer med diakoner från åtta olika församlingar i Stockholms stift. Empirin har bearbetats genom tematisk analys och hermeneutisk meningstolkning och analyserats utifrån begrepp från två rollteorier. Studien visar att diakonerna kan förhålla sig till det sakrala och profana i sina yrkesidentiteter på tre olika sätt. För vissa diakoner är det sakrala och profana i yrkesidentiteten välintegrerat, dessa diakoner upplever inte några motstridigheter mellan det sekulära i att vara socionom och det religiösa i att vara kallad av Gud. För andra diakoner tar antingen det sakrala eller det profana över, exempelvis om de upplever att de inte har tillräckligt med kunskap i teologi och därför främst arbetar med socialt arbete och det profana. Det tredje förhållningssättet är att det kontinuerligt sker en förhandling mellan det sakrala och profana, detta tar sig till exempel uttryck i att diakonerna ibland får stöd och vägledning genom sitt kall, men ibland genom sin kunskap från socionomutbildningen. Gemensamt för diakonerna är att relationen mellan det sakrala och profana i diakonernas yrkesidentitet påverkas av kontextuella faktorer, som organisationen och det sekulära samhället. / The purpose of this study is to provide knowledge about how deacons in the Church of Sweden experience that their professional identity is affected by the tension between being a professional social worker and being called to be a deacon by God and the church. The study is based on eight qualitative, semi-structured interviews with deacons from eight different parishes in the diocese of Stockholm. The material was processed through thematic analysis and hermeneutic interpretation of meaning. It was later analyzed based on concepts from two role theories. The study shows that deacons can relate to the sacred and profane in their professional identities in three different ways. For some deacons, the sacred and profane in their professional identity is well integrated, these deacons do not experience any contradictions between the secular in being a social worker and the religious in being called by God. For other deacons, either the sacred or the profane take over, for example if they feel that they do not have enough knowledge in theology and therefore mainly work with social work and the profane. The third approach is that there is continuous negotiation between the sacred and the profane. An example of this is that deacons sometimes find support and guidance through their calling, and sometimes through their education in social work. The deacons have in common that the relationship between the sacred and the profane in their professional identity is influenced by contextual factors, such as the organization and the secular society.

This study examines how the organizational model of the Church of Sweden as stipulated in laws and regulations can contribute to an understanding of practical board work among members of working committees that are related to individual board members’ understanding of the organizational notions collaboration and responsibility. The study further examines how these two notions may be affected by how the organizational model of the Church of Sweden describes and outlines how collaboration and responsibility should ideally work within the Church of Sweden. Through qualitative analyses of regulatory documents, observations of board work and interviews and surveys with active board members, both clergy and lay members, of working committees within the Church of Sweden, the study finds that an ideal logic of how the organizational model of the Church of Sweden should work is conveyed through laws and regulations, but finds that the studied working committees follow these to a limited extent. Instead the study concludes that the practice of the studied working committees is determined by how individual members understand and believe the organizational model should work, i.e. how clergy and lay members within the working committees should cooperate. There is an indication of a correlation between how the working committees organize their work in the committees and how they relate to the organizational model of the Church of Sweden. The working committees that have a weak co-operation, seem to focus more on internal issues within their local church, while working committees that have a strong co-operation tend to focus more on strategic public issues within their local diocese.

The aim of this study is to analyse the consensus decision making methods that are used at the annual conference of the Uniting Church in Sweden. The methods are analysed through the experiences of people that have attended the conference. Seven participants in the annual conference have been interviewed, and their expressed experiences have then been viewed through Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory, the theory of Jane Mansbridge et. al. regarding developments to the concept of deliberative democracy and through Paul Fiddes and his thoughts on finding the mind of Christ. The study concludes that the decision making methods has so far been well received and applied towards their objectives, though there is room for improvement.