The Sub-Saharan countries have for a long time struggled with poverty and conflicts which might have proven hostile for investors. The analysis aims to see if there is a significant correlation between foreign direct investments (FDI) and economic growth and which cultural and institutional factors seem to be significant in this correlation. Considered are also other variables and their influence that might explain what motivates and gives incentives for foreign direct investments (FDI) and are used in the construction of a regression analysis. This to see whether there is an effect on the economic growth in relations to FDI. The results show that FDI is of significance to the economic growth in the region and the study shows that corruption seems to be the most significant institutional factor in the correlation with effect on economic growth and the ability to attract FDI..

Recent studies show that the knowledge in and understanding of science, technology andmathematics of Swedish junior high school and high school students is decreasing. As a resultof this the Swedish government has initialized several studies, research and reforms. One ofthe theories for teaching that today is seen as effective is the socio-cultural perspective and itsdescendants, including scientific inquiry. Using the pedagogy of the socio-cultural perspectivefour assignments regarding the human body was constructed for junior high school studentsattending summer research school in the summer of 2008, hosted by AstraZeneca. Theassignments follow a structure (goal of assignment, preparations, experiment and follow-up)inspired by the concept of NTA ? Naturvetenskap och Teknik för Alla (Science andTechnology for everyone).

This is a two year master's thesis in the field of museum and cultural heritage studies. The purpose of the thesis is to examine different opinions among museum employees about the role of museums. The thesis also aims to find out to what extent and in what way these opinions are influenced by the museum's own policy documents, the national cultural policy and the academic field of museum studies. I have conducted qualitative research interviews with six employees from three different cultural history museums. The theoretical framework of the thesis is based on Laruajane Smith's term authorized heritage discourse.

A lot of habitats have declined or disappeared as the old cultural landscape changed to the modern agricultural landscape of today. Places such as power line corridors, racing tracks, gravel pits and military training sites have become refuges for many species associated with the old cultural landscape. These sites have been exposed to ecological disturbances that create the same type of habitats that were found in the old cultural landscape.The military training sites in Sweden has an impressive diversity of species. Disturbances from the military exercises have created habitats that are important for a wide range of species.The purpose of this thesis is to study some of the ecological disturbances occurring in the military training sites of the Swedish Armed Forces and examine how they affect different types of habitats. The thesis explains through litterateur and field studies the reason to the rich biodiversity often found at military training sites.

There are numerous questions to be asked when your task is to plan a small community?s future development. Is it possible to suggest something new and modern? What considerations should be taken concerning the existing situation? What is an appropriate size for the new development? Where is it possible to build and what is the most appropriate method to use?In this master´s thesis I have tried to develop and describe a working-process where I execute a complete landscape character analysis for the whole community in question to get the answers to where and how it would be most appropriate to develop a village like Flädie without destroying its current character.Flädie is a typical small village in the countryside of Skåne, Sweden. It is strongly effected by the expansive and urban region it?s located in but is still rural in character.

The purpose of this study is to propose and formulate quantitative indicators to help measure an aspect of the Environmental Objectives in Swedish legislation: ?A Good Built Environment, Interim Target 2.? The governmental bill 2004/05:150 suggests changes to Interim Target 2: By 2010 built environments of cultural heritage value will be identified and placed under long-term sustainable management. Following the revised formulation regarding sustainable management, indicators should be formulated to measure the fulfilment of sustainable management of built environments of cultural heritage value. An important part of management takes place at the municipal level of planning, where detailed development plans include regulations to protect built environments of substantial cultural heritage value. As a result, this study is focusing upon the regulatory function of the Swedish Planning and Building Act in respect to the built environments of cultural heritage value.

The aim of this paper is exploring questions regarding the problem of absenteeism among high-school students in Sweden. Fifteen students attending an urban high-school have been interviewed about their views and experiences of absenteeism. The author analyzes the students? answers by taking into account two different sociological approaches which give two different explanations about the way young people experience and estimate education. The French sociologist Bourdieu theorized that differences in cultural capital influence the permanent internalization of patterns of thought and behavior.

My thesis is based on a qualitative study. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether the educationalist at an especially chosen school in Stockholm promotes the students multicultural background in the education or not.This is due to the fact that the Swedish school to a considerable degree reflects the multicultural Swedish society. The socio-cultural starting point is when people come together and meet. The language is the tool of the socio-culture and it is the dialogue, discussion and sympathetic understanding that makes people meet.The cultural concept is diffuse and very wide. Everyone has their own definition of it.

Cultural bias in health assessment has been asserted in various scientific reports. The aim of this study was to determine whether ethnicity effects how patients are represented in such medical certificates that are needed to obtain a certain Swedish social insurance. The setting was an analysis of 18 medical certificates for patients whose parents were born in Sweden, respectively of 18 medical certificates of patients whose parents immigrated to Sweden from non European countries. The main objective was comparison of the two groups to test for ethnical heteronormative representations of the patients and their parents. The method used is mainly based on critical discourse analysis in combination with Fowlers (1996) semantic tools used to decipher disparity in the discourse.

The aim of this work is to give an example of how archaeoacoustics can broaden our understanding of archaeological remains and to further contribute to the almost non-existing research of ringing stones. With a theoretical discussion about sound from three different perspectives and by means of using different kinds of analysis, this essay will show that there are unknown relations between the three known ölandic ringing stones and the cultural landscape of Öland. Possible patterns in the placement of the stones and the possibility of the sound in this soundscape will be investigated. The essay will also suggest a resonant stone typology and discuss the necessity of one. Finally, the intention is also to shed new light upon the discussion on what the uses of the ringing stones might have been..

The aim of this paper is to study how multiculturalism is expressed in the Swedish labour market policy. The method used for the investigation is a discourse analysis which study social and political processes in the society as created through language. The perspective of the discourse analysis is a social construction that considers that language is a social production created in a discursive way. It produces and reflects social process in the language.By using theories of national identity and multiculturalism we aim to investigate how multiculturalism is expressed in the labour market policy. With this method we aim to analyze the discourse of a political report made 2008 by the current government about integration strategies in Sweden.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine some pre-school teacher's and parent's perceptions about communication within the pre-school context and how this can be described in terms of conceptual dichotomy.The empirical investigation consists of a qualitative study, where data have been collected by interviewing two focus groups and one single parent.The main theoretical tools which the study uses as its premiss is Derridas' theory of hospitality and Habermas' theory of deliberative dialogues. The study also considers the conception of the intermediate domain as an arena for communication between parents and pre-school teachers, and further more the conception of stereotyping in social and cultural contexts.In order to explore these processes I have used the qualitative method of interpretation; Hermeneutic, also with a narrative approach to the analysis.The results and the analysis of the data show that the interviewed parent and pre-school teachers have a poor sense of knowing how much influence to give to each other. The parents were not satisfied with the level of open communication and how the pre-school teachers share information of the activities..

The aim of this essay is to examine how people living in the Swedish countryside looked upon changes in the interiors through modernization in 1850-90. For the first time, there was an abundance of objects available in stores in the countryside that the majority of the population had money buy. Many novelties were introduced in the interior decoration of ordinary peoples´ homes. This study focuses on the introduction and use of wallpaper and is based on a questionnaire about wallpaper sent from the Nordiska museet, National museum of Culture history in Sweden, to people all over Sweden in 1948. 148 people responded to the questions about use and attitudes toward wallpaper during the second half of the 19th century.My theoretical perspective is cultural diffusion, the spread of cultural items, more specific the diffusion of innovations from larger to smaller places, often influenced by social elites, hierarchical diffusion, and between individuals, contagious diffusion.The analytical perspective used for the analysis is based on the concepts of basic and variable modernity, initiated by the historian Sven-Eric Liedman.

From policy to practice - a study of textile companies view about challenges with implementing CSR policies examine the textile companies awareness of which challenges there are with the implementation of codes of conduct in a global supply chain, as well as to analyze how the companies deal with the challenges. With increased globalization many companies have chosen to outsource entire or parts of the production in various developing and newly industrialized countries. However, the working conditions in these countries do not always fulfill the labor standards that are defined in various conventions. The society began demanding companies to take social responsibility. The social responsibility goes under the term Corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The most common form of female cancer in Sweden is breast cancer and the primary choice of treatment is surgery. Removing a woman's breasts is not just removing a body part but is also strongly linked to the emotional life. This has psychosocial consequences and the reactions will be different depending on how people perceive health and illness. Factors that matter are both personal experiences and cultural factors such as religion, family, and the own standards and values. It is important that a nurse is aware of cultural factors that may influence the perception of care.