In Sweden, the main responsibility for urban planning lies with the municipalities. The county administrative boards are responsible for clarifying the governmental interests for the municipalities. The main purpose of this essay was to study documents with descriptions of national heritage areas in order to examine whether certain problems within these documents are still present in the most recent ones. This was done by comparing old documents with new ones. The problem with these kinds of documents has been the lack of clarification of cultural values in national heritage areas.

Today many people with disabilities are excluded from cultural activities. The reason for this is that activities and the environment are not adapted to people with disabilities. The aim of this study is to describe the process to make cultural activities accessible and to describe the importance of good communication between cultural suppliers and their customers. Other questions raised are accessibility to cultural activities for people with hearing disabilities, the activities in the marketing process, the interaction between theatre companies and its audience and if the interaction has contributed to the theatre's future development. Qualitative interviews with staff responsible for integration at seven theatres have been performed.

The National Arts Council[1] has made an evaluation on obstacles and success factors for the interaction between culture and school. In the evaluation report they concluded that teachers and cultural workers have different views on culture and knowledge which creates confusion in their interaction. Thus I became interested to investigate teachers and cultural workers views on culture, aesthetics, and the knowledge that they think the students / children / young people should get from culture and aesthetics. This work is based on qualitative interviews with four teachers and four cultural workers. I compare their views with each other and link it to different research perspectives on culture and aesthetics in school to get an understanding of the similarities and differences in their approach, and what implications it can have in the school?s learning processes. In this work, from a didactic point of view, I found that when the teachers and cultural workers are talking about culture, the why-perspective differs.

The purpose of this paper is to find out pedagogues approach to intercultural education through IVIK, goals and guidelines, the school for newly arrived students and how student experience and knowledge are utilized. In my study, I used a qualitative research method. I have interviewed four teachers and four students and a school administrator at IVIK. Results of the study show that most teachers have a good understanding of interculturalism, but that doesn?t mean that teachers make of this relationship means in their teachings.

According to the national curriculum guidelines for elementary school, preschool and after-school 2011, (i.e. Lgr11), the Swedish school is based on a democratic foundation. Schools should prepare students to develop an understanding and acceptance of cultural diversity not only in the society as a whole but also how this should be reflected in the morals and ethics between us. The purpose of this study was to describe how teachers in multicultural schools perceptions and experiences on teaching pupils with diverse immigrant origin, and how they apply these cultural expression in practice.In particular, I focus on four teachers in multicultural schools and how they reason about applying cultural expressions that are transmitted at these schools and by them. Explicitly, I review how from policy documents and their own personal pedagogic are reflected in the actual teaching.

The Sami people are a national minority in Sweden, but are also considered as native citizens of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. The world has however a very limited knowledge about the Sami?s and their Cultural background.The aim of this proposal is to examine six different history schoolbooks which depict the Sami people in Sweden. In addition, one of the key elements of this proposal is to understand how the selected literature represents the Sami people.Lastly, the proposal also seeks to review if the literature in the schoolbooks represents the elementary curriculum goals (Lpo94).The selected method was to do a text analysis of the literature and to illustrate that is presented in the reviewed schoolbooks. The text analysis is completed with an analysis of the illustrations and pictures that are presented in the selected schoolbooks.The key findings were that the review in majority of schoolbooks has stereotypical descriptions of the Sami people. The Sami people are generally depicted with the hut and the reindeer management in majority of the reviewed schoolbooks.The research about the Sami people is inappreciable in majority of the reviewed literature. In addition, the Sami people are often presented in connection with ?other? history, such as the silver ore in the mines or the territory dispute with settlers from the south of Sweden.

The purpose of my study has been to find out how mother tongue teachers working in preschools where a majority of the children have a mother tongue other than Swedish make use of fictional children?s books during the mother tongue support lessons. In order to determine this, I am asking the following questions:- What is the range of children's books in the children's mother tongue available at the preschool?- In what ways are the native language teachers encouraging literacy development through the usage of children's books?- How do native language teachers view the childrens? linguistic development as well as the enhancement of cultural identity through the usage of the books?These questions have formed the basis of the methodical approach, which is based on a qualitative research method. The data collection consists of three parts; the observation of mother tongue support, interviews with language teachers as well as with the nursery manager and lastly a survey of children's books in languages other than Swedish at the preschool.The essay has as its theoretical basis the socio-cultural view of learning and development.

Increasing immigration to Sweden has transformed a culturally homogeneous society into a more heterogeneous one. As a consequence intercultural communication and interaction have been increasing. Child health care agencies have encountered these increases. The aim of this study was to examine what the health care professionals experienced and communicated in these intercultural environments. Eight interviews with child health care nurses were carried through at four child health care centers in the south of Sweden.

The purpose of this study is to describe how expatriates at Handelsbanken in France, Hong Kong, China, Russia and Singapore have adapted to the host culture. To illustrate how well they acculturated following seven factors have been chosen: Time, previous international experience, cultural distance, language, work environment, spouse acculturation and met expectations. The study was conducted through interviews with six expatriates and surveys answered by nine expatriates. Our study shows that the expatriates have experienced different lengths for cultural adaptation. The majority of the respondents indicated that it took up to six months before they adapted culturally.

This study investigates how the host community of Tenerife perceives the socio-cultural effects of tourism on the island. The method chosen for the study was qualitative interviews which were performed with six respondents, each born in Spain, living permanently in Tenerife and employed within service-related occupations. The interview material was interpreted and handled according to a hermeneutic approach. The results of the study showed that the respondents had an over-all positive perception of tourism. Perceived positive socio-cultural effects were related to cultural and linguistic influences.

This article deals with the woodlands as a biological cultural heritage and how it is taken care of in the protected woodlands in Skåne, in the south of Sweden, especially the deciduous trees which is dominated by beech. High biological values have emerged as a result of grazing and different kinds of forestry. The protected woodlands have been ripped of its cultural influences which changes the biological values on which the original reasons for protection was founded..

Drawing from the theoretical foundations of the ?critical theory? of the Frankfurt School and the media ethnographic ?cultural studies? approach of the british Birmingham School, this study attempts to sketch out a media theoretical overview of the contemporary state of media culture. Using the term convergence culture as the foundation, this study offers a theoretical background to the two contemporary streams that are the significant and distinct tendencies of convergence culture: intermedial convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies that can be traced back using the past media theoretical approach of the Frankfurt School, and cultural convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies, which lineage in a media theoretical context can be traced back to the british ethographic ?cultural studies? field. Using contemporary drama serials to identify and pinpoint these two stream, this study shows how intermedial convergence expresses itself today through media conglomeration in terms of branding, product placement and marketing as the result of the ?completed? convergence between screen culture and popular music as the current defining state of commodity culture.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the implications and challenges of intercultural communication. An in-depth study was performed of the perspectives from people who work within an international organization. How they experience cultural differences and how they handle them, in particular when it comes to communication. Also, their perceptions of communicative competence were explored. The study was carried out at Svalorna India Bangladesh, at the Swedish office in Lund.

The background of the study consists of the fact that knowledge about how eating disorders are developed and maintained is extensive. Socio-cultural factors and media influence when developing an eating disorder is of significance. When reviewing literature and previous research, knowledge about practical attainments when treating eating disorders are insufficient. The aim of the study was therefore to examine how staff who treats eating disordered patients think about body ideals, strive for success and media influence in treatment and rehabilitation. The theory consists of Foucault?s theory of power, how beauty ideals are dependent of the cultural context in which we live and what qualities are associated with beauty and body ideals.

Body image is a term that refers to a person?s feelings and attitudes toward his or her body. There are many different factors that influence a person?s body image: historical, cultural, social, biological and individual. The purpose of this study was to investigate young Indian women?s body image in India from a cultural perspective.