In 1998 a new regional development policy was introduced by the Swedish government. A central feature in the policy was the formation of partnerships at the regional level. The partnerships were meant to consist of local and regional stakeholders, representing a great variety of interests, who would collaborate in order to improve regional development. The new policy was promoted, besides being more efficient, as a way to broaden political participation and to break male-dominated structures.This thesis discusses whether the regional partnership actually favours ?women's interests?, in terms of how the relationship of power between women and men is constituted by the model.

The development of higher education in Sweden poses new demands on higher education libraries. One way of meeting these demands has been to develop Learning Resource Centres (LRC), a concept that is relatively new in Sweden.The aim of this Master's thesis is to identify how the LRC-concept has been designed and integrated in three Swedish higher education institutions: Stockholms universitet, Lärarhögskolan i Stockholm and Göteborgs universitet. The thesis also aims at investigating what the Learning Resource Centres mean to the seats of learning, and in turn, the views of concerned parties in relation to the integration.The method used for the study is qualitative and based on interviews conducted with Learning Resource Centre staff, academic staff and principles or deans. In addition to this, strategic documents from the examined seats of learning are studied.Even though most Swedish Learning Resource Centres have used British Sheffield Hallam University's Adsetts Centre as their model, our study shows that the Swedish Learning Resource Centres of today have developed in various ways, due to local conditions; therefore, there is no definitive model for Swedish LRCs.In our opinion, one of the most important characteristics of a LRC should be its integration in the academic life of its university. There does not seem to be a "recipe" of how to conduct this integration.

We set out to compare two different categories of workers: the, so called, white- and blue collar workers. The studies aim was to measure if there were any observable differences between the two in means of optimism and sense of coherence. There are two tools created for measuring optimism and sense of coherence, the Life Orientation Test ? Revised (LOT-R) measures an individual?s level of optimism and Aaron Antonovsky devised a test for measuring an individual?s level of sense of coherence (SOC). Optimism is best explained like a way to measure anticipation, how an individual expect future events to fall out.

The first purpose of this thesis is to investigate if, how, and why the perceived collective identity in the town of Karlskrona has changed. Collective identities can due to their socially constructed nature change rapidly in light of new collective experiences. The reason for suspecting such a change in Karlskrona is the immense impact that the change in the global economy, according to Saskia Sassen, has on cities. By interviewing politicians and media representatives from Karlskrona the perceived identity is drawn. The second purpose of this thesis will then be to test if the identity as it is perceived by Karlskronas habitants differ from the one that town officials present through city marketing.

The overall purpose with this thesis has been to study the strategic development of the Swedish Green Party, Miljöpartiet de Gröna. From its first appearance in the Swedish parliament 1988 to its decision to cooperate with the Social Democrats and the Left Party in 1998, the Greens has gone from a radical antiparty to a pragmatic support party. The analysis has concentrated towards identifying the causal factors behind this strategic move made by the Greens, and to determine how this party change has affected the party's strategic goals. In order to do so, a qualitative case study has been conducted where an integrated theoretical approach has been used. By studying official statements and internal debates the thesis concludes that the strategic change made by the Greens was due to the evolvement of a new dominant coalition of within the party.

This comparative linguistic textstudy focuses on the relationship between a newspapers own outspoken political standpoint and it´s ambition of being an unbiased provider of objective information. This connection becomes particulary interestering in times of election when a newspapers role as provider of information is of great importance for the citizens. When a newspaper reports an event to the public, the reporter always has to choose from a small selection of possible linguistic forms when representing the story. Through linguistic analysis of these forms we can see that the final choice is often not a complete arbitrary one. We compared two daily newspapers, Dagens Nyheter and Dala-Demokraten, that stod on opposite sides in the Swedish EMU-elections 2003.

Homelessness has always been and will always be a problem in every society. How should we organize the work and care for these people? There are three different types of welfare states, the liberal, the conservative and the social democratic. In the liberal welfare state the market is the supplier of the public good. In the conservative state the family and church and in the social democratic the state is the supplier of the public welfare.The Swedish welfare state has been the archetype of social democratic welfare with de principal of ?Folkhemmet? in focus.

This is a qualitative study aiming to study stepparents? view of the relationships within the stepfamily and their thoughts about what makes it work. It is based upon three stepmothers? life stories focusing on their relationships with their stepchildren. The study is based on a symbolic interactionistic theory and explores the experiences and unique perceptions of these women in their life as stepparents.

Syftet med studien var att bland högskoleanställda undersöka skillnader i Work-Life Balance och arbetstillfredsställelse beroende på deltagarnas kön samt beroende på om deltagarna hade barn under 18 år eller ej. Studien syftade även till att undersöka skillnader i arbetstillfredsställelse beroende på deltagarnas ålder. I studien ingick manliga och kvinnliga högskoleanställda som arbetade minst 80 % och som undervisade och/eller forskade inom den aktuella tjänsten. Studien genomfördes som en web-enkätundersökning på två högskolor i Sverige. Totalt besvarade 125 deltagare på enkäten som utgick ifrån två olika mätinstrument; Netemeyers, Boless och McMurrians (1996) skala som användes för att mäta Work-Life Balance uppdelat på Family-Work Conflict samt Work-Family Conflict och Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) som mätte inre och yttre arbetstillfredsställelse.

AbstractIn the literature on multiculturalism and group rights there is a strong tradition that sees diversity as something directly paradoxal to unity. In this tradition, scholars put forward a view of multiculturalism as a divisive and exclusionary process which breaks down the cohesion and unity of society. Related to this notion is that of a neutral and universally valid frame of reference in which political dilemmas can be solved; for example a neutral civil sphere where the ?true essence? of society lies. In this essay I attempt to criticise these two notions.

In august 2006 the Swedish government official report (SOU) about the structural discrimination was published and caused a lot of debate in the media. This paper is about the report as such, as much as the academic quarrel it caused in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. My aim is to explore why the report is so provocative and what the debate actually is about. I use discourse analysis both as a method and theoretical framework, inspired by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Using this methodology I explore which discourses that are articulated.

The purpose of the present essay, as part of the project Self esteem and Life circumstances among teenagers, was to investigate the rate of both deliberate self-harm (DSH) and risk behaviour related to eating disorders in 14-year-old swedish adolescents, gender differences in DSH, and possible correlations between DSH and risk behaviours related to eating disorder. In addition, the effects of expressive writing (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986) on DSH and risk behaviours related to eating disorders were investigated. Data from two pilot studies are included. In total, 198 14-year-olds from four different schools in southern Sweden participated. For the purpose of measuring the rate of DSH, a simplified version of Gratz's (2001) Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory (DSHI) was used.

Type 2 diabetes is a growing disease in the population which includes that older people are a risk group. With the disease grows even cost?s. A lifestyle change is a major part of the treatment for type 2 diabetes. There are several factors that suggest positive effects on prevention among the elderly where, among other things, economic and health benefits are presented.

It?s not for nothing the time we live in is often referred to as the age of information. Children and young adults who grow up I today?s society have greater access to facts and opinions than any earlier generations. This also applies to popular culture that during the last couple of decades have taken new expressions that no one could have ever dreamed of and more time goes to the consumption of it via visits to the cinema, television and computers.

I mitten av 1900-talet steg antalet kvinnor på arbetsmarknaden dramatiskt vilket fick tillföljd att debatten kring möjligheten till balans mellan arbete och fritid, work-life balance, tog fart på allvar.Det övergripande syftet med denna studie är att bringa en bredare förståelse kring kvinnor i förhållande till aspekter av arbete, som berör balansen mellan privatliv och yrkesliv. Intentionen är att tillföra personalområdet en djupare och bredare förståelse kringde villkor som kvinnliga arbetstagare dagligen måste förhålla sig till och därmed också arbetsgivare.Resultatet visar, utifrån kvinnornas berättelser, att samhälleliga förutsättningar för balans och integration, jämställdheten i parrelationen och dess betydelse för balans och integration samt kvinnornas egna strategier kring balans och integration är viktiga aspekter för kvinnorna i hur de balanserar och hanterar work-life balance.Det har även visat sig att förändringar i ovannämnda perspektiv av work-life balance är små mellan generationerna. I de samhälleliga förutsättningarna för balans och integration syns tydliga förändringar mellan generationerna. Politiska och organisatoriska förutsättningar har förändrats över tid. Nya hjälpmedel och möjligheter för individen har etablerats och den samhällsekonomiska situationen förändrats.