There was a silence surrounding homosexuality in the People's Republic of Poland. One can almost get the impression that same sex love, and same sex relationships, did not even exist there; that the communists had successfully removed homosexuality from society. The roots of this silence can be found in the Communist Party´s disdain for anything deemed individualist and deviant, and also in the conservatism and religiosity of the Polish society.In my thesis I study when and how gays and lesbians found a way out of the silence that surrounded their sexuality. Gay men did so by creating subcultures, which found refuge in parks, public bathrooms and a few bars in larger Polish cities, and offered a sense of belonging for them. Lesbians, on the other hand, lacked this access to semi-public spheres, which made it even harder for them to find each other and create a space for their sexuality.

During the late 1990s a movement with the intention of forming independent libraries emerged on Cuba. They were seen as an alternative to the public libraries which were supposed to be suffering from censorship by the Cuban government. The purpose of this thesis is to compile and bring structure in a debate regarding public libraries on Cuba and what have become known as independent libraries. In this thesis a textual analysis has been approached for examining articles, websites and reports concerning what attitudes and position the library support organizations Friends of Cuban Libraries FCL, Cuban Libraries Solidarity Group CLSG and IFLA/FAIFE have regarding the two different library types. These positions is throughout the survey connected with the concept of intellectual freedom.

Europe has, since the economic crisis of 2007, gained increasing social segregation. The gap between rich and poor has increased and the large number of hidden statistics regarding people excluded from the labor market is greater than in many years. Social exclusion has thus taken a toll on community groups that already before the crisis had a hard time getting included. Groups such as young, elderly, immigrants and people with mental of physical disabilities. To curb this development, the European Commission have, since the 2004 directives, enabled public sector clients to, through procurement of goods, services and contracts, include measures that promote social consideration.Social consideration is a term that have been a part of Swedish procurement legislation since 2007, and was updated in 2010.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine and understand how teachers of younger children view the concept of critical evaluation of information and how their interpretations of the concept relate to their teaching. The need for the development of children?s ability to critically evaluate has been emphasized through research as well as the need for collaboration between teachers and librarians in order to help pupil?s process information into knowledgeThe study has a socio-cultural perspective and the material was collected through observations and qualitative interviews with teachers. The results of the study indicate that many teachers experience uncertainty when it comes to the area of critical evaluation and that they do not teach the subject to any substantial extent.

This thesis explore women?s needs when reentering society after having served a sentence at the female prison Färingsö, outside Stockholm and whether those needs are being met in the reentry strategies that are being provided. Parallel to this the thesis also examines if there, based on nonconformity and gender theories, is a socially constructed representation of women maintained in the rehabilitation work.The method of this thesis applied semi-structured interviews and used snowball sampling to expand the network of informants to obtain the data necessary. Totally five interviews were carried out. Previous research has shown that women in prison have much more complex problems than men and that there is a need for reentry strategies that take gender in account.The results showed that in terms of being able to reenter back in society, women needed help to structure a previously chaotic life.

This thesis is a study of spatial practice and literary depictions of homes in novels by Elsie Johansson, Kerstin Thorvall and Kristina Sandberg. The theoretical perspective is based on Henri Lefebvre´s view on social space, and on the concept of spatial practice. Research questions are: What homes are depicted? How does spatial practice function in the texts? How does the depictedspatial practice relate to norms and ideals?The novels, published 1993-2014, depict an interesting period in Swedish history (cirka 1920-1970) when politics and society at large was deeply involved in reshaping the homes and lives of Swedish citizens. The aim was to turn the citizens into new, healthy and rational parts of the new and rational society.

 Prostitution has been intensely debated in Sweden for nearly four decades. Two major investigations have so far been initiated by the government and numerous propositions have been put forward in the Swedish parliament resulting in the sexköpslag from 1999 that criminalizes purchase of sexual services. The law aims at punishing the buyer and protecting the women in prostitution, thus making it possible for women to be helped by various social interventions rather than punished. Swedish society has undergone major changes in these decades. Globalization, the internet and the membership in the EU have changed the Swedish society and influenced the discourse on prostitution.This paper has a twofold aim, on the one hand investigating if and how these changes have had an impact on the prostitution discourse in texts produced by the government and analyze how female and male sexuality in connection to prostitution is constructed.

In Sweden we have the highest rate of nontraditional students among Europe. Coincidently, we also have the highest rates of drop outs among OECD. In this particular field, drop out from higher education, there is a need fore more qualitative studies that can support the "statistics". Studies about experiences of drop outs are significant for society, university and individual. The aim of this study is to describe and understand how nontraditional student experiences drop out from higher education.

During the beginning of the 19th century Sweden is effected by the Napoleonic Wars and in the aftermath of the war Sweden looses Finland to Russia. This loss leads to the dismissal of King Gustav IV Adolf and the introduction of the Bernadotte dynasty on the Swedish throne. Over the century the industrialization plays a big part in the progress of Sweden. The growth of the industries leads to developments in the areas of agriculture. With this essay I would like to examine if the people on the countryside of Gotland keep the same pace as the people on the mainland in their introduction of new things.

The last two decades have changed the society from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. The technological development, especially in IT, has caused a ?Revolution in Military Affairs?. However; how big are the changes RMA will give, or will it even change the foundation of the Art of War and if so, in what way?RMA has three cornerstones DBA, DS and PE all closely integrated in an NCW-concept.

The foundation for this thesis lies in whether or not, and how, the body representation in printed commercials, specific products directed to the body (shampoo, body lotion etc.), has changed during the last fifty years. Four years have been chosen because of the changes in society that we believe might have had an impact. The commercials that have been picked out are the ones that best represent the general view of the body. We have found that the changes when it comes to body presentation has followed the social development to a certain degree, but it is difficult to say how much the society has had an affect on the body ideal in advertising. Representations of the male body is something that has escalated since the early 70?s, fifteen years earlier few commercials was made with male models, and the few there were, never showed more than the face.

One year Master's thesis, Degree of master in Business and Economics, School ofBusiness and Economics at Linnaeus University, Management, 4FE10E SpringSemester 2014.Author: Johanna Björklund and Sarah Gustafsson.Mentor: Magnus Forslund.Title: Lean in the public sector - Potential barriers to a long-term Lean work.Background: Organizational changes are something that is constantly done inorganizations, and in the last decade, there has arisen a plethora of different changemodels. A reorganization that is popular among companies today is Lean. Lean is aconcept that was developed within the Japanese automotive industry, but has evolvedfrom the Japanese shop floor and is now a concept that can be found in, for example,several Swedish municipalities.Purpose: The purpose of this study was to create an understanding of why the conceptLean may have difficulty getting a hold in the in the long term.Methodology: The study was done with a qualitative research approach and through anabductive approach. As we intended to create an understanding, of what potentialbarriers that may affect that a Lean work, in some cases, does not become a long-termcondition, it seemed natural to choose a hermeneutic approach to knowledge. Theempirical data collected via individual unstructured interviews, through a groupinterview, and by non-participant observations.

The aim for this thesis is to study the international gender equality work from a perspective of the concept of universalism and particularism, with the United Nation?s Declaration of Human Rights, and especially -?The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women?, in focus. The shadowreports of Namibia and Sweden are used as examples of how countries with different historical, political and social contexts are working with gender equality.A theroetical framework is constitued by theories as postmodernism, postcolonialism and feminism with basis from social constructionism. The thesis is methodological influenced by Critical Discourse Analysis. Notions from former studies were also used as tools in the analysis.

In this essay a conclusion about the way female characters are portrayed in fantasy novels will be attempted through an analysis of one selected female character from each selected novel. The works that have been chosen are; J.R.R. Tolkien?s The Lord of the Rings, Robert Jordan?s The Eye of the World and A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.The analysis will be done with the help of examples and theories from both feministic criticism and gender studies.

The aim of this essay is to investigate to which extent the novel Kvinnor och äppelträd by Moa Martinson can be classified as a polyphonic novel. The concept polyphony was established in literary theory by the Russian language theorist and literary critic Michail Bachtin in 1929, in his book Problems of Dostoevsky?s poetics. In order to understand and comprehend the concept of polyphony I have used an interpretation due to the literature scholar Robyn McCallum. She notes that the characters in a polyphonic novel function as focalizers.