Jämställdhet i domskrivning: en kritisk diskursanalys av hur asylsökande skildras i domar.

Sammanfattning: Sweden is ranked as the world’s fourth most equal country and is working towards explicit enunciated gender equality policy goals, initiated by the government. The policy goals establish that women and men are to have the same power to shape society and their own lives. Despite this, studies show that a gender unequal treatment of families who seek asylum in Sweden does exists. The aim of this essay is to investigate if the migration court uses a language that reflects gender equality in their verdicts. Through a three-dimensional critical discourse analysis, this study examines how asylum seekers are being portrayed based on their sex, age and other socio-cultural circumstances. Furthermore, this study also examines how the portrayal affects the court’s ability to integrate gender equality into its practice and procedure. The results show that the majority of the verdicts do not reflect any gender unequal language. However, discourses that may have consequences for the court’s contribution to achieve the gender equality policy goals, have been identified. The most prominent discourse shows how the man in the family is given the most pronounced role in the verdicts. With this essay we hope to contribute to a critical language awareness in order to create opportunities for progression within the work of gender equality.