The purpose of this thesis is to explore what possibilities Swedish public library has to work with and promote integration. The possibilities are examined on the basis of internal requirements of integration, the role of public library in the civil society and its policy documents. Further, the thesis examines what Swedish National library politics could contribute to this particular field. The experience of integration politics shows that a genuine commitment from all parts of the society is required in order to build an integrated society. The part of a society that public libraries are closest to and have the greatest impact on is undoubtedly the civil society.

In the past years the traditional donors of development assistance have been increasingly aware of changes in the donor landscape. This as emerging economies like China and India has undergone a transition from recieving aid to becoming emerging donors. By identifying and comparing ideas, beliefs and interests pursued using foreign aid between so called emerging and traditional donors, the greater purpose of this thesis is to take a closer look at the alleged changes in the world order. The starting point is Goldstein & Keohanes framework of the impact of ideas and interests in foreign policy and the one of K.J Holsti about institutions as markers metrics of change. The results show that there is no vast difference in interests but a detectable difference in the ideas behind foreign aid.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine how daily encounters between the Danish public libraries and the library-users called ethnic minorities are described within the public library field. Danish public libraries have been assigned to play a larger role in societys strive towards integration of immigrants and refugees. Within Danish politics I find an emphasis on the importance of maintaining Danish culture, but it is rarely expressed if ethnic minorities are, can or should be a part of it. Theoretical and methodological starting points are hermeneutics and text-analysis. My theoretical framework is research about international migration and ethnic relations IMER.

The role of cultural policy within the general political planning of a community can vary both historically and regionally. The aim of this study has been to explore the cultural policy plans, during the 1990's, in the recently formed geographical region of "Västra Götaland". This is a qualitative study, carried out during 1999, and based upon structured interviews with five representatives of the cultural-policy sector in the "Västra Götaland" region. In order to identify connections and tendencies in a more general social context the aims of the five representatives regarding cultural policy have been explored from the perspective of three cultural policy paradigms, namely Dorte Skot-Hansen, Olav R. Spilling and Göran Nylöf.

The purpose of this essay has been to describe and compare the personal qualities that the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) tried to associate Barack Obama and John McCain with during the American presidential election campaign 2008. The main question to be answered is: What social and physical characters as well as what personal experiences, interest and resources did DN tried to emphasize regarding John McCain and Barack Obama during the American presidential election campaign 2008. The theoretical starting-point has been John B Thompson?s theory of the mediated publicity and John Corner´s theory of political persona and spheres of action. Various DN news texts, in all 38 articles, have been examined by content analysis from 25th of august to the 4th of November.

This study deals with the concept of ?integration?. Starting from the concept of reality as socially and linguistically constructed, it is an attempt to see how lingual constructions and perceptions affect the official structures of society and vice versa. The main purpose is to compare the different meanings integration has in a sociological context and in a political one. Further, the purpose is to see how the relationship between the sociological and political concepts affects the integrational work in the Swedish County Administrative Boards, and which consequences these effects might have.

The concept of sustainable development is a challenge that demands cooperation from all levels of society for it to be successful. The focus for this thesis is how politicians within the local councils understand the concept of sustainable development and how they implement it in political decision-making.The basis for the study is a questionnaire that was distributed to 303 local politicians in three municipalities of varying size in Southern Sweden. The study concentrates on departments within the local councils that are directly connected to the Swedish environmental law and the Swedish planning and construction law. One of the primary goals with the aforementioned laws is the achievement of sustainable development within one generation.The outcome of the study was that over half of the local politicians could correctly define sustainable development according to the World Commission on Environment and Development?s (WCED) definition.

This thesis takes as its point of departure the Swedish governmental family policy and the debate on the proposed reform ?vårdnadsbidraget?. The supporters of the reform present it as something that will increase the freedom of choice for families and benefit the children, whereas the opponents warn for decreased equality and a return to the male breadwinner-model.From a constructivist perspective, language is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. By applying a feminist political theory on the debate within the Swedish national parliament 2007/2008 and conducting a discourse analysis, the aim of this paper is to analyse which concepts are used and how they construct to what makes a family within the political debate ? is there any difference or similarity between the view of the opponents and the supporters of ?vårdnadsbidraget??The main conclusion of this paper is that even though the political ideal and rhetorical concepts differ between the supporters and the opponents, they still constitute the heterosexual nuclear family as an obvious norm in family politics.

Sustainability questions that concern the subjects of environmental and social aspects are increasing in today?s society, and therefore the sustainability report is a way for companies to show their work with sustainability development by working with a clear report and follow up. As the first country in the world, Sweden has decided, as from the financial year of 2008, that all governmental owned companies should present a sustainability report according to the guidelines of GRI. The aim of this essay was to identify and analyze actual events from a sustainability aspect for Vattenfall, from a medial perspective during the time period 2005-2009. We made a content analysis of one company?s sustainability reports during a time period of five years and we connected this to the medias reports of the company from the same period, to see if there were any connections between the subjects that media had elucidated.

To create fair conditions between the majority and minorities in a cultural diverse society poses a challenge for both the makers of government policy and the political theorist. The aim of this thesis is to examine the Swedish government official reports concerning integration and minority rights, with a special interest in values and cultural rights. As a methodological tool a theoretical model that classifies cultural rights is developed and the three normative doctrines lockean libertarianism, comprehensive liberalism and multiculturalism are distinguished from the discussion about how politics ought to be in a multicultural society. Through this perspective rights and values in the official reports are identified and analyzed. The result shows three different standpoints in the reports concerning which cultural minority group they are discussing.

Detta examensarbete är ett försök i att utföra ett estetiskt projekt i ett språkämne nämligen franska. Jag genomförde detta projektet för att uppleva hur elever arbetar estetiskt i ett teoretiskt ämne. Eleverna skulle gruppvis utföra en tecknad serie och ett rollspel på franska, med utgångspunkt från den tecknade serien. Från empirin av mitt estetiska projekt med eleverna har jag analyserat hur eleverna upplevde projektet och därmed sitt lärande i ett teoretiskt ämne. Elevernas engagemang och motivation i arbetet var stort.

Syftet med denna undersökning var att undersöka på vilka sätt estetiskt lärande kan inverka på dyslexiproblematik hos barn. Studien hade också till syfte att ta reda på vilka olika sätt pedagoger arbetar med barn med dyslexi och vilka olika arbetsätt inom estetiskt lärande det finns för att utveckla barn med dyslexi.Jag var intresserad av att se om estetiskt lärande påverkade barnen med dyslexi i skolan. Jag har nyttjat tidigare forskning, litteratur och intervjuer med tre pedagoger ute på fältet för att får en större uppfattning och kunskap om ämnet. Jag följde mina forskningsfrågor genom studien för att få fram ett tydligt resultat som möjligt..

The representative democracy has become weakened during the last decades. At the same time the United Nations declared at the Rio de Janeiro meeting in 1992 that environmental problems can best be solved by involvement of all concerned citizens in decision-making. The main purpose of this study has been to examine if citizens panels is a possible way to involve citizens in environmental decision-making and what the outcomes can be. Furthermore the study has investigated what the participation has contributed to environmental politics and how representative the results have been. This has been carried out by investigating the Piteåpanel in the municipality of Piteå by conducting interviews.The result of the study shows that the involvement of the citizens in the decision-making influenced the environmental politics of the municipality.

The aim of this paper is to research and discuss the role the cultural politics play for the Swedish employment office (Arbetsförmedlingen) and the meaning culture politics have within the labour market policy. A research has shown that Arbetsförmedlingen evaluates unemployed cultural workers differently than regular registered jobseekers. From an instrumental perspective on political implementation this can be considered as an anomali. Arbetsförmedlingen?s mandate derives from the government and its authority is a tool for carrying out state policy.

The aim of this master's thesis is to describe the role of language and culture as ethnical identification factors and illustrate how these have been used as political weapons by the Serb regime in Kosovo during the last decade. The thesis discusses the concept of ethnicity, the relations between the politics of identity, nationalism, ethnic mobilization and the importance of language and culture. Kosovo has historically been characterized by severe ethnic antagonism between Serbs and Albanians. Different languages, cultures and religions beside political processes led to ethnic cleavages that paved the way for ethnocentrism, ethnonationalism, chauvinism, ethnic cleansing and civil war. Since 1989, the Serbian authorities have intervened in all important spheres of life, in an attempt to Serbianize Kosovo.