The starting point for this thesis is to problematize the male-dominated language of The Swedish Hymnal and the understanding of gender it involves. The purpose has been: to clarify the understanding of gender and ecclesiology in The Swedish Hymnal and in the Swedish Church's General Synod and to develop an understanding of gender for the church in an equal society. To this end I have examined the understanding of gender of the hymn texts from a gender perspective as well as an ecclesiological perspective. I have also studied the meaning of the understanding of gender of the hymn texts in their wider cultural and social context. I have made use of theoretical approaches and strategies from feminism, feminist theology, ecclesiology, and theories about the importance of language in relation to the society in which it operates. The main result is that the understanding of gender of the hymn texts is markedly dichotomous and value discriminatory to women's disadvantage, and must be regarded as an obstacle to equality. With regard to the ecclesiology of the hymn texts I have used the model of the church - a community for the same conditions as an interpretative key. This has shown that even the ecclesiology of the texts is asymmetric to advantage of men. As regards the understanding of gender and ecclesiology in the Synod, I have found that the category of gender almost never is linked to equality. When placing the understanding of gender of the hymn texts in a wider cultural and social context it appears that the understanding of gender of the hymn texts underpins an understanding of gender that claims the specificity of each gender and a society where only words that connotes male human beings become a model for this community. This has epistemological implications. Finally, with a foundation in the survey results and the theoretical perspectives, I have developed a language without a dichotomous and value discriminatory understanding of gender. This language is characterized by the presentation of women and men in such a way that eliminates gender stereotypes and above all that the deity so as to connote both women and men. The main conclusion of my studies is that the problems with the gender understanding of the hymn book is a consequence of expressing the deity with markers that connotes male human beings, so that divine and manly interplay. In addition, a significant gender-blindness in the decision-making body of the church is a cause. Another conclusion is that the understanding of gender in The Swedish Hymnal has a structuring effect on society at large.Keywords: understanding of gender, equality, feminist theology, feminist ecclesiology, worship and equality, worship and language.

The sports movement plays an important role in generating democratic upbringing and participationamong Sweden´s population. The assumption that sports associations constitute a school in democracyis well established in sports policy and is the basis for today's public sports support. Equality workoccurs within the sports movement where the Swedish Sports Confederation works to ensure thatwomen and men throughout the movement have the same power to shape sports and their ownparticipation and that no gender should be represented by less than 40 percent. This study aim todescribe and analyze election committees within wrestling associations in Sweden in their work ofrecruiting new and retaining existing board members from an equality and gender perspective. Byinterviewing seven people that represent different election committees, we were able to analyze thewrestling associations recruiting processes. The result shows that a recruitment process exists but is notinterpreted. The attitudes and perceptions of gender equality in a board are positive – several selectionboards advocate more women. The problem, however, lies in the fact that there the election committeeshave an androcentric approach which to some extent contributes to a reproduction of the powerrelations that exist within wrestling today, in order to break the structures and norms and succeed ingetting more women in, the associations may need more help from superiors