The European Union's work on equal opportunities for women and men can be described historically in three eras; equal treatment, positive action and, most recently, the gender perspective. In accordance with the latter, gender mainstreaming is the latest method in dealing with these issues. Its aim is the implementation of the gender perspective in all policy processes and to challenge the male norm that permeates all decision making. EU:s work on equal opportunities, though, persists not only of gender mainstreaming but has a double approach also including special actions.This thesis bases its argumentation on discourse analysis of communications from the Commission regarding employment and social affairs. It argues that the two components of the double approach; gender mainstreaming and special actions, are incompatible and even becomes contra productive put together.

Konfliktrelaterat sexuellt våld är ett fenomen som fått stor internationell uppmärksamhet under de senaste två decennierna. Det har talats om passiva och sårbara kvinnor som brutalt våldtagits av uniformklädda män. I realiteten drabbas dock även män och pojkar av sexuellt våld och våldtäkt, likväl gör sig kvinnor och flickor skyldiga till sexuella övergrepp i konflikter. UN Action är det internationella organ som FN använder för att kordinera sitt arbete mot konfliktrelaterat sexuellt våld och denna uppsats syftar till att analysera UN Action:s diskursiva representationer av förövarna och offren. Dessa representationer diskuteras mot bakgrund av tidigare forskning som har dekonstruerat de hegemoniska representationerna av det konfliktrelaterade sexuella våldets förövare (män) och offren (kvinnor), samt påvisat andra kontignenta diskursiva representationer; så som ?män och pojkar som offer? samt ?kvinnor och flickor som förövare?.

The purpose of this report has been to develop an administrative web interface. The web interface is to be used by the company Zidango and it is going to make it easier for them in their daily work of running a web portal. The interface had to be developed so it would fit in Zidangos web portal. This meant the work had to be done in the framwork Struts and mostly in JAVA. Thereforeis a shorter theory chapter included in the report that discusses frameworks.

AbstractIII-essay in political science by Christoffer Harnell, autumn -08. Supervisor: Malin Stegman-McCallion. ?Nuclear Disarmament - USA and the Soviet Union 1960-2002? This essay is about USA and the former Soviet Union and their nuclear disarmament. The purpose is to explain why and when the two states begun their nuclear disarmament, as well as what caused the start of the process.

The aim of the present paper was to see why a recommended course of action is not always followed in the way it is supposed to. The paper deals with a new method (SFA-metoden) used by The Social Insurance Agency in working with sick-listed people. Aspects that are elaborated on are local effects of the method at its introduction, case managers work conditions, and control of the implementation of the method. Two different methods of investigation have been employed. On the one hand, previous reports on the method have been analysed, and, on the other hand, two focus groups interviews, one consisting of case managers´ working with the method, and one constituted by their supervisors have been carried out.The results have been analysed in accordance with, on the one hand, the theory of street level bureaucrats and, on the other hand, certain concepts applied in the new institutionalism.

This thesis analyzes the consequences of ?Lex Uggla? ? a law concerning the boundaries between firm and individual with respect to wealth taxation ? for small businesses, with more than 3 million SEK in over-liquidity. There are two main findings of this thesis. Firstly, the wealth taxation of non-operational assets seems to be an inefficient tax which costs the Swedish welfare system much more than it generates. Secondly, the change in actions among entrepreneurs following the extensive news coverage following the tax authority?s charges against the company of the well-known artist, Magnus Uggla (hence ?Lex Uggla?) illustrates that neither changes of rules nor new applications of rules is necessarily sufficient for an agent to change course of action.

The action where form is given to inner thouhts and ideas is a creativ course of events which is difficult to grasp. The main purpose is to research how such an action can appear and function. The method which is used to research this purpose is the qualitative interview. The respondent?s inner descriptions and thoughts about a particular phenomenon is what the qualitative interview aims to elicit.

The aim of this qualitative study was to examine and understand how teachers see and handle the signs of child poverty within a classroom context. The paper is based on an interview study involving 8 teachers in 2 Swedish schools for children between the ages of 6 to 12 years old. Poverty is a complex word and there are many definitions of it. What do teachers interpret as signs of child poverty in the school context? How do they act when they think it?s necessary to protect a child from being affected by it, and how can we understand their choice of action with the help of Action theory? We discovered that the teachers notice different things as signs of child poverty, and they all react in both different and similar ways.

The purpose of this paper is to study how people without home experience social services and how they experience their space of action when they meet social services. In order to answer these questions, a qualitative approach has been used. The empirical material consists of five interviews with people who have contact with social services because they are homeless. To support my analysis of the space of action for the persons being interviewed, I?ve used two theoretical perspectives, power analysis by Michel Foucault and Rational Choice.

The subject of my thesis is what I have chosen to call the ?action babe cinema? of the 21st century, essentially action-movies featuring a female heroine in the lead role. Inspired by the theories of Vladímir Propp, author of Morphology of the Folktale, I have tried to reveal the underlying structure of these films. I have chosen eleven films which form my material, and from these extracted a number of functions (which means the actions of a character), that reoccur frequently. The heroines? transformation can be seen as a central theme of the action babe cinema, and I have divided the films into two groups depending on the course of the transformation, either from soft to hard or the other way around.

The present study deals with the scope of action available to a social worker when analyzing, assessing and proposing measures regarding young persons experiencing social problems. The interest in the subject area emanates from the fact that the number of youth placed in different forms of round the clock out-of-home care in Sweden increases, whereas research in the subject shows that such placement gives few positive results and sometimes even has negative consequences for their development.The study investigates how the preconditions of the social worker influence their scope of possible action, in particular as regards their place of work, the situation of the individual dealt with, and the profession itself being one based both on scientific evidence and knowledge gained by experience. Lipsky?s theory on ?street-level bureaucracy? and Hasenfelds theory on human servicing organizations form the theoretical framework of the present study. The empirical input comes from interviews with focus groups of active social workers.The analysis of the interviews shows that social workers generally feel that they have a broad scope of action as far as the regulatory framework and office management are concerned.

The aim of this essay was to describe how school social workers can help and support students with parents who abuse alcohol or other drugs. We wanted to see how school social workers room for action is presented and how it affects their work with students living with parents who are abusing. We used a qualitative method to elucidate how school social workers handle this issue in a more profound way. By conducting semistructured interviews with six school social workers in one province in southern Sweden we gained exhaustive and detailed answers. In the analysis we used street level bureaucracy and theory of recognition.

The purpose of this study was to examine how teachers see the use of action plans for students in need of special support in physical education. The questions used were: What do the teachers consider being the causes for students not reaching the objectives in physical education? What experiences do four teachers have considering the work with action plans for students in need of special support? And, what experiences have one chosen head of school about establishing action plans for students in need of special support?To reach the answers to these questions qualitative interviews were made with four teachers from different schools. The interviews deal with the teachers views on assessment, curriculum, and the work with action plans for students in need of special support.The results show that that the underlying causes for students not reaching their objectives was either lack of participation or difficulties in certain parts of the subject. Despite this, the teachers write very few action plans even though it appears there are students in need of special support.

This thesis examines political consumerism as a political tool for change. Consumers' attitudes and behaviour towards political consumerism is of special interest. The method used is a questionnaire with 59 participating students. Their answers are analysed both quantitatively and, to a lesser degree, qualitatively. The theoretical framework consists of Fishbein and Ajzen's theory of reasoned action and previously published research of essence.The consumers in this study generally rank corporate social responsibility (CSR) as important.

This thesis studies private equity firms' implementation of management control systems in their portfolio companies and whether the systems are affected by cross-national differences. A comparative case study examines five different private equity firms to derive if there are any differences between the private equity firms' management control systems in the United States, Europe and China. The empirical observations are categorized according to the framework developed by Merchant (1985) and further developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003). Theory on the effect of multinationality on management control systems, also developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003), are used to explain possible findings. The applied theory includes the cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede (1984) and Hofstede and Bond (1988).