The aim of this study is, from a norm-critical approach, to find, investigate and analyse human representation in the visual culture of one preschool in order to understand if the children enrolled are represented or not. The research questions are: In what ways is there imagery of human representations in images and materials designed for play? What skin-colors and origins are dominant in the data collected?We carried out a qualitative study in the form of visual ethnography. This method allowed us to use a combination of different data collection tools such as photography and ethnographic field notes to collect our data. The photographs we took of images and material used for play, was then analysed through semiotic picture analysis.

This thesis highlights starting points underlying the notions of two feminist utopians, Christine de Pizan and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In approaching their texts, it focuses on the notions central to understand their writings. These would be historical, social, and cultural contexts. Defining concepts as utopian in its varying forms and feminism has been of significance. A feministic approach grounded in Simone de Beauvoirs philosophical phenomenology in the study of feministic utopia's visibility, has contributed to the understanding of the power structures to which women are tethered. In order to understand the way women are presented, it has become obvious that The Book of the City of Ladies and Herland are literary works that are related not only by their authors? background and personality but by the society in which they lived. Through their engagement in the contemporary intellectual debate on all social planes, both authors contributed to shifting the focus of their own contemporary notions of a woman to the notion of a woman equal to men. Woman, in Christine de Pizans utopia, is given specific properties and through themes of issues given meaning. She is not free in the sense that Simone de Beauvoir says.  She has a broader repertoire than was historically assigned, but her freedom is not arbitrary, contingent, and temporary and judged by her actions.

AbstractThe Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare has since a year or so started to introduce a new way to work with childcare investigations within the social services. This new concept, BBIC, is meant to put the child?s needs in the first room rather than the grownup?s as it used to be before. This study is about to examine how BBIC affects the legal security of the children within these childcare investigations.BBIC was first developed in England after a massive criticism against the way that the foster home- and institutional care was handled. In Sweden, BBIC was first tested and developed into Swedish conditions in a few project municipalities for about five years but is now being introduced all over the country.

The purpose of this report was to examine the schools views on its task to form good citizens and also the work with children and their souls and feelings. My question of issue was:? Which are the conditions from where you work with feelings and forming good citizens in school?In the Swedish learning curriculum for the compulsory grades, Lpo 94, there is a lot to be read about the schools task to form good citizens and human beings. One can also read that the schools have to work with the feelings of its pupils and also the issue of values. The results of my report show that the school has a responsibility to support the family?s work with the upbringing and the personal growth of their children.

 AbstractA walk at Karlstad's cemetery and burial - grounds is like a strolling in an architectural park with trees, bushes and flowers. But these parks are different; they are filled with dead people, their memorial stones and their life stories. This world is full of socially, economically and culture differences from different times from 19th century till today's society. The cemetery - and burial - grounds in Karlstad can tell you about 19th century influences just by looking at the stones and where they are placed. Influences from the religion, the Christianity, which symbols for example is the cross, the birds and the sun that rises or falls, but also phrases that is directing to the bible.

Lameness causes suffering and poor performance in sheep, as in other species. The cause of lameness often originates in problems of the claws. Many claw diseases of sheep are described in British and Australian research, but this field has previously not been of special concern in Sweden. This graduate thesis contains the first claw health survey made on Swedish sheep. The chief objective was to give an overview of sheep claw diseases and to assess claw health in adult sheep.

Following paper deals with the questions about prehistorian and medieval settlements in the Mälar Valley and their relations to the historically known hamlets or single farmsteads from the 17th- and 18th-century cadastral maps. Models over settlement development through the period A.D 200 to 1700 done by geographers Ulf Sporrong and Dan Carlsson are tested and compared to the knowledge won by recent archaeological excavations. Is there a connection between the older settlements linked together by dry-stone walls and the late Iron Age settlements? Does the picture differ from the one presented for the Gotland region? How well are the general theories about different settlement development depending on basic natural conditions as for the potentials for cultivation and topography, corresponding to the physical remains?  Are there other factors involved when the settlement structure takes its form?The methods that are used here constitutes mainly of a comparison between different locations in the Mälar Valley that has got a well known prehistory thanks to extensive archaeological excavations. Cadastral maps, soilmaps, topography maps and maps over ancient monuments are intertwined to the same map and analyzed through works in Geographical information systems.The results of this study reveal an interesting suspicion in the continuity-question through the Iron Age.

Joint-related diseases including hip dysplasia (HD) and elbow arthritis (ED) can in advance cases lead to that the dog has to be put down, and these diseases are also the cause to expensive veterinary treatments of many large breeds, including Labrador Retrievers. The aim of this study was to make a follow-up study on the 271 Labradors, who previously participated in a study on the effect of nutrition and exercise on hip and elbow status in a birth cohort born year 2000. That study investigated the relationship between nutrition, exercise, and HD and ED. A follow up study on the same dogs at 5-6 years of age investigated the clinical effects of the radiological hip and elbow status at 1 years of age and if was effected by body condition score. This study took place in 2011-2012 and 187 Labrador retrievers participated.

The aim of this study was to examine how social workers relate to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, regarding their cultural background and potential social issues. In order to achieve a more profound and comprehensive view of the social workers views regarding the separated children, we selected to execute semi structured interviews with social workers. These interviews were aimed at those social workers who performed assessments and investigations concerning unaccompanied children. We completed nine interviews which we recorded and transcribed in a strict manor. When we analyzed the empirical material, certain themes where identified as more protuberant and thus we our selection was based on what we regarded as the most relevant topics, in accordance to the aim of the study.

This thesis examines the conditions for participation in the decision making process of a possible mine establishment in Storuman municipality in the north of Sweden. This is done through a case study where the main actors are the mining company Nickel Mountain AB, the municipality Storuman and the Sami village Vapsten. As a theoretical framework Cecilia Eriksson?s division of democratic theories is used as a starting point. Methods as described in deliberative democratic theory, such as discussion by effected community members, are seen as a method within the participatory democratic tradition, not a theory of its own.

During the latter part of the 20th century the situation for people with intellectual disabilities in Sweden changed and developed. Clients have the right to participation and self-determination in society and in applied measures under the law of individual rights legislation; LSS. The purpose of this study is to describe and understand how team-leaders and managers in day-centres in a municipality works with participation and self-determination for clients, and what the professionals consider affects the client's possibility to self-determination and participation. The research questions intended to be answered are:? How does the team-leaders and managers work to enable self-determination and participation of the users in the public day-centres?? What does the team-leaders and managers describe and understand as enabling and limiting factors for the client?s possibility to self-determination and participation?The study is qualitative and interviews have been held with eight interviewees, which I contacted through snowball sampling.

When the producers? responsibility for packaging was introduced in Sweden in 1994 the industry set up public recycling stations to facilitate the collection of the waste material. In order to establish recycling stations at suitable locations the municipalities assist the industry?s service organization for operation of the recycling stations, the Package and Newspaper Collection Service (Förpacknings- och tidningsinsamlingen, FTI). The objectives of this thesis are to improve the service of the public recycling stations within Lidingö town and to increase the accessibility to these stations for the inhabitants of Lidingö.

The aim of this study was to explore and gain understanding of the situation between managers in different forms of human service organizations. I chose to use a qualitative method and conducted semi-structured interviews with five professional middle managers in the public sector. To accomplish my purpose, I worked on the basis of several questions. The questions dealt with the role of middle management and what it involves, how it is perceived and what the middle managers think of the specific requirements for them and their leadership in organizations that provide services relating to people.  As a result of the analysis I have used the theory of social roles that describes the meaning of the different roles and role conflicts that arise in connection with various and conflicting expectations. The review of the results shows that middle managers in human service organizations experience to have to deal with a complex leadership role.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to explore the function of public libraries as arenas for young people's artistic creations. It examines how the public library makes activities based on independent creativity visible, and what activities of this sort imply to the public library. The thesis also relates this to the public library's task in society. The main object of examination is Demoteket, an on-going project in the south-eastern parts of Sweden. In this project Länsbibliotek Sydost co-operates with Reaktor Sydost, a centre of resource in the fields of young communication and filmmaking.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Sweden held about 15-20 certified health resorts that wanted to improve peoples? health with vegetarian food and alternative medicine. This essay aims to explore the popularity of health resorts through a patient?s perspective. What did the patients look for at the resort, which they could not find in the official health care? A basis for the analysis is Bonnie Blair O´Connor?s theory of Health Belief Systems.