The current field of research concerning the impact of railroads in Sweden beside from the State main-line network is relatively narrow. Including cultural impact to the area narrows the results even further. The purpose of this study is to open the field even more into the local societies and to what extent the impact of the introduction of railroad might have had on smaller county villages. Sweden holds a unique position concerning ?station towns? or ?railways towns? in terms of railway policy and the industrial development in towns that were affected by the railway, as the affected towns continued development were based on a hybrid between direct democracy and adaptations of city-law policies.This study takes place in Kisa, a small town in southern Östergötland that during the beginning of the 20th century turned into a municipal community due to the building of Östra centralbanan (roughly translated Eastern central-line).

The aim of this study has been to explore local cultural policy documents in some municipalities in the geographical region of Västra Götaland. Do the municipalities have these kinds of documents for their local cultural activities, and how are they designed? These are questions which the study has focused on. The study has been concentrated on the library activity in the local cultural policy documents. The research has been a comparative one.

The purpose of this study is to generate a greater understanding of the different ways in which music can be used to build an identity and create image within movies, and also to explain the different impacts this can have on the parties involved. Through the history of movies music has been used as a tool for enhancement and for expression of emotions. Through music the audience relates to personal memories or emotional states and the experience is given a deeper impact, helping to create memorable movie scenes. Certain directors have created a unique identity through the use of music in their movies, and also artists have been brought forward by starring in a soundtrack. What we find interesting, and what is also the discussion in this study, is in what ways this collaboration/artistic expression can be done and what impact it has on the parties involved.

The aim of this master-thesis is to investigate the emergence of bureaucratic drift in connection with implementation of EU-legislation in Sweden. To narrow it down I have chosen to look at the Swedish implementation of the Working Time Directive, directive 93/104/EG. To be able to fulfil the purpose of this master-thesis I have used two research questions; [1] How did Sweden implement the Working Time Directive into Swedish law? and [2] Why did Sweden omit to correct implement the Working Time Directive? To be able to understand and explain the situation I have used the principal-agent perspective as a theoretical framework. An analysis of motives has been used as analytical method.The results from the analysis show that Sweden, in order to keep the contractual model used on the labour market, which is a part of the well known Swedish model, shirked while implementing the directive and implemented as to be able to fulfil its own agenda.

In recent centuries the Swedish Tiled Stove has varied in its design with an aesthetic evolutionary history that has not only followed the architectural and artistic ideals but also the taste in stove design. The heat source has varied depending on the regional traditions and where it was located within the country, but the inside of the construction was of a similar five channel system. The purpose of this paper is to study and compare the design of tile matrices made by Emil Petterson with other Swedish stoves. The following questions will be addressed:What characterized the production of a small scale tile stove workroom during the years 1900-50? Which main styles can be described as Emil Pettersson?s ideal while producing his matrices? And finally, is it possible to study the tile stove matrices as objects of historical and cultural significance, and what difficult methodological issues might occur in the doing of it? To answer these questions I will present the results of the documentation of Pettersson?s tile matrices with detailed historical categorizations and schedules. The conclusion shows that Pettersson as a stove builder and -producer was characterized by eclectic ideals and a design shape based on more liberal interpretations of contemporary trends.

The overall aim with this essay was to study how counsellors at upper secondary school work with mental illness among youths and compare this with what research and theories advocate. This because there has been a rise in the number of people, especially in the age-group 16-24 years, suffering from different degrees of mental illnesses. The school can in some aspect contribute to cause mental illness but it also consists of good opportunities to offer counselling and work to prevent mental illness among the students. This study consists of five qualitative interviews and two short telephone interviews with school counsellors. During the interviews they expressed their thoughts concerning factors that causes mental illness among youths and gave an account of how they work with prevention, counselling and collaboration.

The purpose of this paper has been to examine the question whether accountants differ in their auditing depending on their individual characteristics. We have summarized our own theory based on previous research and our own ideas. To conduct this purpose we used a deductive method. Our findings from the study show that we cannot exclude the possibility that accountants vary in their auditing depending on their individual characteristics. The answering frequency to our survey was only 47 %, and this may have affected the outcome of our research.

In this essay, I have studied the image of the drug abusing mother and her motherhood as seen in some of the social science literature on drug abusing women. This I did with a qualitative research design and with the questions:How is the drug abusing mother and her motherhood portrayed by social scientists?What signification is her motherhood given in her life by the researchers?What approach towards the drug abusing mother in the research process, and hence in the creation of the images of her, does the scientists have?I found that there are distinct patterns and themes in the research on mothers with a drug abuse. The researchers studied the women with the goal to understand them and to give them the opportunity to speak for themselves through the researcher. The drug abusing mother is in short portrayed as a woman who cares for her children, whose motherhood is one of the most important factors in her life and who is anxious that her substance abuse should not threaten it.

Street art can be defined as an artistic expression, often anonymous and illegal, which is constructed in the public environment. The purpose of this essay is to provide a broad and balanced picture of what street art can mean. The aim is to examine street art as a phenomenon. What features has the phenomenon and in what ways is it important for the creators, spectators and place? This paper focuses on graffiti.

The aim of my thesis was to investigate in what grade teachers who work within special education make use any methods to train the working memory of their students to improve learning ability. I also wanted to examine the material used to train working memory and if any results were noticed. My choice of method was qualitative semi-structured interviews that were recorded during the interviews I conducted these in five different school with education for children with intellectual impairment. The result shows that the schools that are aware of recent research on working memory training had methods for training with their students. They could also see a result that shows that working memory can be improved with training.

Over a long time psychology was focusing on human frailties and mental diseases. In 1998, positive psychology was introduced - the scientific study of strengths, well-being and optimal functioning. Theory and research in the area has identified 24 character strengths, in which each individual owns and celebrates a number of top strengths, signature strengths. These strengths have been shown to be important in achieving happiness and well-being. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between character strength and psychological well-being, job satisfaction, harmonious- and obsessive passion and stress.

AbstractThe purpose with this essay has been to gain a greater understanding and clarify how an arena can create value within place marketing and development of a place brand. This will be achieved through a description of which values an arena causes in the surrounding areas and an understanding of how these values can be interpreted through the place brand. We decided to base our study according to the following two questions:1. What are the underlying reasons why there has been such a big trend with arena project?2.

The purpose of this study was to do a narrative survey of the discussion about violence in partner relationships that is held in research literature. The question at issue was: How do research literature discuss violence in partner relationships, with focus on heterosexual relationships? The eight primary documents that have been chosen are written by researchers, professional therapists, National Counsil for Women's protection (Nationellt Råd för Kvinnofrid, NRK) and Swedish Government Official Report (Statens Offentliga Utredningar, SOU). To investigate the theories, discover the similarities and differences between them and how they can complement each other, the documents statements has been analyzed with a dialectic-hermeneutic approach and social constructionism and discourse theory.The research findings showed that the gender perspective theory, the psychodynamic theory and the social psychology theory have a few things in common, but that they on the whole are different and contradict each other. The gender perspective theory dominates the discussion but needs to be combined with the other theories to give a more all-embracing understanding.

In this essay, I research and discuss new spirituality (or what is commonly known as New Age) within some congregations in the Church of Sweden, Gothenburg. I question how and why this new spirituality has come to be accepted in parts of the Church. My hypothesis is that the church is a part, and a reflection, of a larger change throughout society, and I claim that this change depends much on the individualization and globalization during the last decades.The research is conducted through interviews with representatives from the Church ofSweden who are in charge of new religious activities. During these interviews we discuss their views on the change that has already taken place and is going on today.The interviews are then analyzed by applying rational choice theory on them. I discusswhether the Church can be seen as a producer of goods and services and if the churchgoers canbe seen as consumers of these goods and services.

The main purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine how high school students evaluate the quality of the information available on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. By doing quantitative research based on questionnaires we expected to find that the means for judging that students use in this situation are most frequently based on a text?s intrinsic qualities in the point of view of its content. It was also our presupposition that 18 and 19 year old high school graduates have received some education in information research and authoritative sources on the Internet.