This thesis is dedicated to analysing the relationship between Islam and democracy and the role played by Civil Society in a process towards democracy. This theme is further elaborated through a comprehensive study of three modern Muslim intellectuals: Abdolkarim Soroush (Iran), Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), and Tariq Ramadan (Switzerland), and their thoughts about and views on Islam and democracy. Islam has often been portrayed in a stereotype manner where all forms of change are seen as impossible. The aim of this study is to go beyond this vision and instead focus one the role of Islam in processes of development and new forms of interpretation concerning democracy.The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the relationship between Islam and democracy.

The aim of this essay is to create an understanding, of how teachers comprehend knowledge, grades and tests in a school context. It is important to get a grip of the different parts of the teacher?s reality. The test, the grades and knowledge are deeply connected as a part of a whole. The teachers view on knowledge can not be understood without asking about the practical parts of their work and understand how the different parts are dependent on each other.The main material consists of interviews with four teachers that work in a public mandatory school in the south suburbs of Stockholm.

För att alla elever ska kunna uppnå scientific literacy bör man utgå från barnens erfarenheter där naturorienterade ämnen, NO, knyts till ett sammanhang ? en kontext. I kontexten synliggörs naturvetenskapens mänskliga sida, och därmed visa att NO är mer än fakta. Elever behöver lära om naturvetenskapen, vilket kallas nature of science, NOS. Vårt syfte är att ta reda på hur lärare aktualiserar nature of science genom ett Linné-tema.

During later years coaching has gained popularity. Coaching offers help to learn rather than to teach and enables optimal performance. The method that builds consciousness, strengthens choices and leads to change in the wanted direction, can deduce to some of history's most successful educationalists. A coaching area steadily increasing is business- and executive coaching. The overall purpose with this paper is to explain what coaching is generally speaking, with specific focus on business- and executive coaching.

This report documents the process of designing a laboratory exercise in Fourier analysis at Vetenskapens Hus (House of Science) in Stockholm. The lab is designed for high school students studying science or technical education. It focuses on the physicalunderstanding and mathematical description of sound, in particular music. A model of such a lab is presented in this work; containing a review of the mathematical theory, summary of educational research in the field, descriptions of the design process and of the investigativework that led to the final result. The designed material for the lab includes developed computer programs, visit leader tutorial and description for teachers. .

In this essay I have aimed to examine how the theology of Paul Tillich relate to modern views of reality, both the way it was expressed in his contemporary time and the way I see it today. Reality I have defined as an entirety of the physic- and metaphysic reality. A so called panentism where God is reality and the world is a part of this reality.With Tillichs Systematic Theology as my principal material, I have first made a brief presentation of his theology, of its construction and main concepts. Then I have chosen to further examine the way he describes being, reason and revelation to see how this particular concepts of Tillich agree with my definition of reality. In this I have consulted the books Tillich in Dialogue by Mackenzie-Brown and Natural Theology Versus Theology of Nature, a book edited after the forth international Tillich symposium 1992, which had "Tillichs thinking as impetus for a discourse among theology, philosophy and natural sciences" as a theme.I have tried to point out the possibilities opened up by the ontology and epistemology of Tillich for the dialogue between theology and natural sciences.

Science Fiction har sedan sin uppkomst gestaltat samhället och de samhällsfrågor som för sin tid är aktuella. Alltifrån ifall människans existens är kroppslig eller andlig, till vad som händer när livsformer från andra planeter kommer till Jorden, har diskuteras i Science Fiction. I tv-serien Battlestar Galactica gestaltas och problematiseras vår samtid. Genom att flytta mänskligheten från Jorden och ut i rymden, där de konfronteras med en mängd etiska och moraliska frågor ? tvingade att se över vad de själva är och vad de håller på att bli.

The following essay or thesis is a study over scientific endeavors in the fringe. It is a study of Riksorganisationen UFO-Sverige, whose proponents aim to make the UFO phenomenon (or phenomena) a subject of scientific scrutiny. To achieve this, the ufologists first have to redefine common concepts of ufology as pseudo science or religion, mainly by challenging definitions given by scientific sceptics on the one hand, and proponents of conspiracy theories or the new age environment on the other. Thus UFO-Sverige seeks to construct an alternative scientific identity in contrast to adversaries on both sides, each unwilling to give the UFO phenomenon any further examination. Following the work of Tomas Gieryn's sociological grip on questions of epistemology, especially concerning the social boundaries of science from other cultural categories through what has been labelled as epistemic boundary work, during which proponents of a particular field aim to achieve epistemic authority and thus the legitimate right to define what is and what is not science, I seek to analyze how questions of science and legitimacy are actualized in an intellectual environment or culture not broadly accepted as scientific.

What role should science play in democracy? Political scientists often assume that it is possible to demarcate between ?instrumental? and ?moral? knowledge, and argue that citizens and/or politicians should use their moral knowledge to agree upon political goals and then apply the instrumental knowledge of scientists to achieve them. This straightforward view is challenged by writers in science studies, who identify three major problems in the use of science in democracy: uncertainty, risk and hidden values. They suggest that these problems could be solved through citizen participation.In this essay I perform an analysis of the internal logic of their suggestion. Is it likely that citizen participation enhances the democratic decision making process so as to reduce the problems? The internal analysis shows that it is rational to advocate citizen participation by reasons of legitimacy.

The purpose with this study is to map the research front and the research base in information science, by using the bibliometric methods bibliographic coupling and author-co citation analysis. The research questions are: 1. What is the nature of the research front in information science, regarding which areas that are being studied? 2. What is the nature of the research base in information science, regarding which authors who are most cited, and how they can be grouped? The data used in the study were gathered from articles published in the journal Journal of the American society for information science and technology, published between 2004-2006, respectively 1986-2006.

In order to be able to change, to maintain competitiveness as a company in a world where rapid changes is part of the daily life, it is crucial to have knowledge and methods in how to change. One method, originally developed in Finland, is the Change Laboratory. This method is said to be efficient, not only concerning change aspects but also learning, since change and learning in this method is intertwined. This Master Thesis (20p.) tells about the process of conducting a Change Laboratory with a Swedish high-tech company and analyses factors in the process that makes change possible..

This study concerns ways in which Muslims in Sweden construct their identities. The theoretical approach of the study is based on the assumption that people construct their identities through narratives. Circumstances such as time, place, and relationships affect how narratives are told and therefore how we perceive ourselves and the world around us.In the wake of 11th of September 2001, the old colonial narrative of ?the West vs. the East? has become powerful, and makes many question the possibility of successfully integrating Muslims immigrants in Western countries.

Denna uppsats ger inblick i pedagogers, läroplanskrivares, lärares och elevers syn på begreppet självständighet. Uppsatsen tar sin utgångspunkt i vad som händer under tiden efter att en elev stött på problem till dess den fått handledd vägedning i ämnet slöjd. Självständighetsbegreppet står i centrum för uppsatsens framställning..

The subject-matter of the following essay is to investigate the relationship between what is commonly called Deep Ecology or Biocentric Philosophy, as articulated by the co-founder of the Deep Ecology Movement, Arne Naess, and later proponents of the biocentric school of environmentalist thought. I contrast Naess? concept of Self-realization as founded in his Ecosophy T to the ideas of american conservationist and co-founder of the radical green movement Earth First! Dave Foreman, and to the controversial finnish environmentalist and ecofascist Pentti Linkola?s ideological agenda of population-reduction respectively.According to some critics of the movement, especially the social ecologist Murray Bookchin and French liberal philosopher Luc Ferry, the Deep Ecology ideology is essentially misanthropic and totalitarian in structure. A central idea among deep ecologists is that ecosystems and natural entities have intrinsic value in themselves, even outside a human social context. This idea is thought of among deep ecologists to create a philosophically sound basis for counteracting the environmental global crisis.

I examensarbetet har läroboksserier inom fysik för gymnasienivån studerats med avseende på Nature of Science. Begreppet Nature of Science, NOS, handlar om naturvetenskapens epistemologi och de sammanhang som påverkar skapandet av ny kunskap inom naturvetenskap. Aspekter från andra vetenskapsområden som, historia, filosofi, ekonomi, och sociologi lyfts fram som viktiga i kunskapsutvecklingen av naturvetenskap. Som grund för studien har ett avgränsat avsnitt, som i examensarbetet benämnts vad är ljus, undersökts. Inom detta område har det studerats om och hur NOS används i läroböckerna.