Maria Zackariasson

Angry Young Men? Masculinities and Emotion among Young Male Activists in the Global Justice Movement

This article is based on qualitative interviews with a number of young men who are active in the global justice movement in Scandinavia, and particularly examines what role anger may have in their political involvement. The individual narratives and reflections from the interviews are discussed in relation to the role of emotions in how and why individuals get involved in social movements, and to various meanings and popular understandings of the emotion anger. The interview material is also related to cultural conceptions of masculinity and youth, with particular reference to the dominating media image of young activists in the global justice movement in Scandinavia, which to a large extent has focused on aggressive behaviour and violence.

Being Yourself: Identity and Self-presentation among Youths in Christian Youth Organizations

A person’s identity, both social and personal, can be said to be constituted by several different aspects, such as gender, age, ethnicity, class and also religious affiliation. In a country like Sweden, where only a small number of youths are involved in religious organizations, it is, however, not necessarily uncontroversial for youths to present themselves as religiously active. To openly declare your religious commitment, places you in particular collective identities associated with certain beliefs or stereotypes that may challenge norms surrounding how Swedish youths are expected to think, behave and act. This article examines how a number of youths, active in the Christian youth organization of one of the Swedish free churches, present themselves and their religious involvement to friends at school. The results show different strategies used for handling experienced or anticipated reactions to their involvement in a religious organization and the collective identities they may be ascribed because of it.

Student independence in undergraduate projects : different understandings in different academic contexts

ABSTRACT Independence is a concept of scholarly interest in relation to higher education, especially when it comes to undergraduate projects. At the same time independence is characterised by a certain conceptual ambiguity, and, consequently, tends to be understood differently in different academic contexts, both nationally, internationally and interdisciplinary. Based on the existing research in the field, we see a need for more studies on how supervisors of undergraduate projects handle this conceptual ambiguity. The aim of this article is, thus, to examine how supervisors from two different education programmes, teacher education and journalism, in two different countries, Sweden and Russia, understand the concept of independence within higher education in connection with the supervision of undergraduate projects. The analysis is based on 12 focus-group interviews with supervisors at different universities in the two countries. In our results, we highlight and discuss seven different understandings of independence that were recurrent in our material and in which phases of the undergraduate project they were seen as most significant. Using Wittgenstein’s ideas on family resemblances, we conclude with a discussion of how the concept independence may be understood in relation to some associated concepts that are also significant within higher education.