This is a study of the importance of culture for persons who are in their terminal stage of life. The purpose of my study is to find out if culture, particularly literature, can be a comfort for persons who are about to die. The study is based on interviews with people who are working in the palliative team at Norra Älvsborgs Länssjukhus (NÄL) in Trollhättan. It is also based on study of literature. It is literature about hospital library, culture in hospital treatment, palliative care, bibliotherapy and ?own stories? from dying persons.

The purpose with this qualitative text analysis was to study how the sex roles of children are presented in children's books published in 2004 in comparison with children's books published 1972-74. The focus was to find patterns and differences. The study embraces eight books intended for children aged 5-9.The main results of the study showed that the girls were described to have a greater bent to take care, while the boys in general were more aimed to perform and achieve. In both today's and the books from the 70´s, the boys were described as aggressive and independent and the girls were often looked upon as princesses by fathers and boys. Violent rowdy behaviour was the essential thing among boys in especially the books from the 70´s.

The aim of this study is to examine Swedish teachers? role and attitude in the Swedish subject towards motivation and reading fiction at upper secondary school. We are also interested in investigating whether or not there are any differences regarding the way teachers motivate students? depending on their choice of education or not. The method we chose in order to achieve this was interviews with teachers.

Denna text koncentrerar sig kring familjerepresentation samt tillhörande genus- och identitetsaspekter, med utgångspunkt i spansk och dansk melodramproduktion under perioden 1999-2004. Genom att med hjälp av närläsningar undersöka filmernas familjebilder, samt aktörerna och deras drivkrafter vill vi granska huruvida dessa fiktioner kan betraktas som symptomatiska för den kultur som de producerats inom. Frågeställningen är alltså huruvida filmernas familjerepresentationer kan utläsas som nationella skillnader och likheter, eller om det vi ser ? och anar ? snarare är en autencitet inom familjedramat, som inte nödvändigtvis är knuten till geografiska gränser utan skulle kunna betraktas som ett tidens tecken. Vår uppsats syftar alltså till att undersöka det kulturella upphovet samt hur dessa filmer står i relation till den kulturella kontext i vilken de är gjorda..

AbstractIn this study you are going to meet the Nordic Good Thor. I will present a short historic presentation of the Nordic mythology, about the Ragnarok and also I will give a short presentation on several other Gods. I have done three film analyses on movies about Thor. The movies are Thor, The Avengers and Thor- the Dark World. I have compared these three movies about Thor with the Thor that is presented in the literature. I have seen closely on the appearance of Thor, his character and his family situations.

This thesis aims to develop a theory in the under researched field of international comparative cultural policy studies. lt does so by combining theories from the fields of political scienceand cultural studies, researching how and to what extent the concepts of culture of different states have an impact on the way cultural policies are constructed.The thesis uses this theoretical development in order to research a specific problem, namely the perceived possibility that Swedish and German cultural structures are slowly converging. Two recent official policy documents from each country are the objects of study. Through comparative idea analysis and with Michiel S. D Vries theories on decentralization, the thesis explains the convergence between the countries by differing cultural views between them.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to investigate how the image of the Public library is described in the Swedish national library politics, and compare it with the image given of the public library in the Danish national library politics. The method used for this analysis is a comparative discourse analysis of the homepages produced by the Swedish central government Regeringen and Kulturrådet and its Danish counterpart Kulturministeriet and Biblioteksstyrelsen. Theories on postmodernity have been used to analyze how the Swedish and the Danish central governments image of the Public library corresponds with a changing society and the changing behaviour of the public library users. Our analysis concludes that the traditional view of the Public library as an institution mainly concerned with literature and reading still is of great significance in the discourse of the Swedish central government. In contrast, the Danish central government presents a more postmodern view of the public library as an institution that is part of the Information- and the Knowledge society.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an idea about geography in literature and through the study of science fiction literature examine the ?future city?. With the perspective that the city is a social construction and through the use of discourse theory, I have tried to emphasize how the future city is a representation of cultural discourses and in what way geography in literature can be used to increase our understanding of urban places. My intention with this paper has also been to find a way to connect the fictional future city with today?s urban planning discussion about the future city.

The purpose of this study is to examine modern constructions of Jane Austens work in films and in books on history of literature. The theoretical framework contains sociology of literature, cultural studies and film theory. I compared Jane Austens books Emma, Pride and prejudice and Sense and sensibility with three film versions from recent years. In the books on history of literature I studied, I found three different attitudes towards history of literature, which also influenced the interpretation of Austens novels. The stories in Austens books and in the films are similar.

This essay is a comparative analysis with focus on Jean-Paul Sartre´s existentialism and Ferdinand Alquié´s cartesianism. They both represented the French philosophy of conscience in the early and mid 1900s. Because of that, they had similar ideas concerning the human conscience and freedom of the mind. But how did they come to those conclusions? And in which cases did they differ from one and other?.

The purpose of this masters´ thesis is to examine the attitudes of public librarians towards easy-to-read literature and see whether a connection between these attitudes and accessibility can be made. The study has been performed with a qualitative approach and consists of four depth interviews with emphasis on how librarians relate to and experience easy-to-read literature and its´ users. As complement to the depth interviews, two micro interviews were made. The study can be seen as a follow up to a survey I made 2005, commissioned by The centre for Easy- to-Read. As analytical tools the cultural sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu, with his concepts field, cultural capital and habitus, have been used.

This thesis deals with the leisure-time reading of fourteen men with two different occupations, teachers of technology and directors of companies. The main reasons for writing the thesis are that very little is written about mens reading habits and also statistics that tell that mens reading decline regardless of educational level. The purpose has been to compare the reading and relations to literature between the two groups of men and to find out if any differences have to do with factors such as social background or age. The questions we have asked our collected data has been what, how and why the men read. We have tried not to investigate the work-related reading although we are aware of the difficulty in separating this from the leisure-time reading.

This is a thesis written at the Swedish University of Agriculture inAlnarp within the landscape architecture education. The essay dealswith the landscape architect's professional identity and how it isdescribed in different contexts along with how it is perceived byprofessional landscape architects.Misunderstandings and preconceptions concerning the landscapearchitect's professional identity is common, both within and outsidethe branch of industry that includes the vocation. This raises problemswithin the industry and for the individual landscape architect. To findout if the root of the problems lies in available descriptions of theoccupation a study has been made. The study includes how thelandscape architect is defined in easily accessible information fromthe internet and in literature as well as in industry-orientedinformation such as dissertations and information from SverigesArkitekter (the Swedish Architects).

This study aims to show how teachers talk about their teaching with regards to gender in relation to literature.We have interviewed four teachers of Swedish for upper secondary school to discover how they feel about, and understand, the fact that gender is a factor in the teaching of literature and that they should present to the students literature written by both male and female authors. To analyze the interviews we use Sannersted's (1991) theory about teachers as street-level-bureaucrats ("närbyråkrater"). He states that teachers are persons who have to follow what politicians have decided but they are fairly free to choose how they do it, but to be able to follow a decision as closely as possible three qualifications have to be met. The teachers have to understand the decision, be able to follow it and want to follow it. We find that the teachers that we have interviewed are aware that they discuss gender issues with their students and they all claim that they present a variation of authors to their students.

Our purpose with this essay was to make a comparative study of the methadone programme in Sweden versus Denmark. We wanted to examine the issue by illustrating the historical and recent development of the drug political policy and the growth of the methadone programme in both countries.We chose to work with the following questions:1. What differences occur in the methadone programme if you compare the same in Denmark and Sweden? 2. How is the respective methadone programmes designed? 3.