A new Home, far from Home : The assimilation process of women involved in intercultural marriages based on Internet meeting

The internet has revolutionized the way we socialize, and as a consequence the way to love. The new communication technologies have facilitated intercultural relationships. Nowadays family relations are one of the major factors in immigration to European countries. Family relations means persons who arrive as family dependents and in accordance with laws regulating family reunification. This thesis aims to apply the classical assimilation theory stated by Milton Gordon (1964), which formulates a series of assimilation stages through which an individual must pass in order to be completely assimilated. In accordance with this theory, marriage is the final phase for a newcomer to fully incorporate into the host society. Thus, based on this presumption and other contemporary theories, the present study has analysed how women who get involved in intercultural marriages based on internet meeting experience these assimilation stages and evaluated the resources used by respondents to incorporate themselves into Swedish society.The main goal of the study was to determine if jumping to the last stage of assimilation does assure the incorporation in the social or/and labour spheres and the findings demonstrate that even though husbands are a valuable resource for assimilation, several cultural issues in Swedish society make it difficult to assure success for the newcomers.On the other hand, Sweden is a country with a strong national sentiment and the assimilation of immigrants still is an important issue to deal with. The Swedish Integration Board has disappeared and major projects for integration have been left in the hands of the municipalities or the Migration Board, institutions that still do not know how to deal with this dilemma.

Understanding older people’s experiences of home care through the capability approach

The core concepts of CA In the theoretical framework of CA, well-being is constituted by a person’s unique way of functioning and capabilities. This means that a person's well-being is personal and involves freedom of choice which in turn means they have a number of options. Although many people may have the same resources, it is of importance to study how these resources are converted into how they function. Thus, wellbeing is about the person's freedom to achieve in general and the capabilities to function in particular (Sen, 1995). Strength of the capability approach The capability approach is a useful tool for matching objective evaluations with subjective metrics. Furthermore, although one’s individual abilities are in focus, contextual factors, and subjective perceptions and experiences, are taken into consideration. Critiques against the CA The capability approach has been criticized for being too individual-centered and not taking sufficient account to social structures in society. It is difficult to know what a person would choose to do if other options were available. Therefore, to operationalize abilities involves uncertainties.

Exploring critical literacy in Swedish education : Introductory notes

This article is an introductory note to The thematic section in this issue of Education Inquiry has its background in the need for research interpreting literacy from a critical perspective. Teaching literacy is not solely about technical reading skills but is also about understanding and the making of meaning. From that point of view, teaching must also consider the use of language, the context within which language is used, and issues of power. The thematic section includes five articles about critical literacy in Swedish education. The contributions were developed after a workshop conducted by Professor Hilary Janks, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She introduces the framework of a critical literacy theory in the first article of the issue. Further, the contributions of Swedish scholars are united in their interest in applying a mode of critical literacy designed by Janks to different practices, sites and speech-events, for example policy documents, home reading, teaching and learning practices. The articles offer a wide perspective of critical literacy in education and further understanding of the complex processes in teaching.