This dissertation examines how creativity can be of benefit for the school. It discusses if there is a need or demand for it and how the present situation is in Swedish schools. Defining creativity accurately is difficult but it is relevant to look at the environments that use creativity. There is a vast amount of literature that uses creativity and it varies to some extent. Creativity originates from meetings and combinations, both within and outside of the individual.

From a social perspective, I have been working on how to change current consumption patterns through a change in people's behavior and attitude towards their possessions. The concept is based on how we can value, care for, and preserve our belongings by using theories in the empathic design field. I have created a structure that allows people to become an active part of a creative process and create their own products. Through this commitment, an emotional relationship is built between the user and the product, and the product tends to gain a longer life. Based on a method to manufacture your own yarn by reusing old clothes, I want to provide the basic tools for an easy and playful way to build the knowledge needed to produce something useful..

Change is a natural state for both people and institutions, but as the surrounding world moves faster it becomes important to quickly be able to adjust to new conditions. Customers? force of negotiation increases as the global competition grows. One factor that becomes more vital to customers is the amount of quality standard a company can offer them. Several factors are essential if a work of change will be considered a successful investment, where the change can be perceived in both a positive and negative way for an employee.

The aim of this essay is to get deeper into the mysteries of love as they manifest themselves as most open: in literature. I have studied the two French writers Claire Etcherelli and Françoise Sagan, both writing about love in the 50?s Paris. While Etcherelli?s love takes place between factory workers, Sagan?s scene is the upper middle class.

This Master?s thesis examines library courses, a relatively new form of user education. Our focus is on the pedagogical point-of-views reflected in the text in these library courses. The primary purpose of the study is to analyze the pedagogical discourse displayed in the library courses to determine if the perspective is behavioural, cognitive, constructive or socio cultural. We are investigating if the pedagogical discourse differs from course to course, and if so, how are they different? In addition we aim to find out how the pedagogical discourse in the library courses relates to university websites and governmental and legal texts, at the discursive and social practice level.

This thesis highlights starting points underlying the notions of two feminist utopians, Christine de Pizan and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In approaching their texts, it focuses on the notions central to understand their writings. These would be historical, social, and cultural contexts. Defining concepts as utopian in its varying forms and feminism has been of significance. A feministic approach grounded in Simone de Beauvoirs philosophical phenomenology in the study of feministic utopia's visibility, has contributed to the understanding of the power structures to which women are tethered. In order to understand the way women are presented, it has become obvious that The Book of the City of Ladies and Herland are literary works that are related not only by their authors? background and personality but by the society in which they lived. Through their engagement in the contemporary intellectual debate on all social planes, both authors contributed to shifting the focus of their own contemporary notions of a woman to the notion of a woman equal to men. Woman, in Christine de Pizans utopia, is given specific properties and through themes of issues given meaning. She is not free in the sense that Simone de Beauvoir says.  She has a broader repertoire than was historically assigned, but her freedom is not arbitrary, contingent, and temporary and judged by her actions.

AbstractThe aim of the research presented in this thesis is to study how interactional strategies are used by children and what these strategies mean or imply in the preschool cultural context. The theoretical point of departure in the study is the socio-cultural perspective (William Corsaro, Roger Säljö, Jim Wertsch). The study is a contribution to the field of research that focuses upon contextual issues and an overall way of seeing the child. This is in opposition to the strong traditional psychological perspective in the development of the child, where a focus upon the individual dominates in special education. This ethnographic study aims to answer the following research questions; What interactional strategies are co-constructed by the children in preschool play? How do the interactional strategies influence the creation of culture in preschool play? The children, 3-5 years olds, and their play situation were in focus.

Stockholms stadsteater (Stockholm?s city theatre) is a public theatre in Stockholm, Sweden. During the last ten years, the theatre has increased its audience by 40 percent, has been called a ?success story? by culture politicians in Stockholm as well as others in the cultural field, and is today the largest theatre in the Nordic countries. At the same time, there is a recurring debate, primarily in the national morning papers? culture sections, concerning Stockholms stadsteater.

In this essay, I research and discuss new spirituality (or what is commonly known as New Age) within some congregations in the Church of Sweden, Gothenburg. I question how and why this new spirituality has come to be accepted in parts of the Church. My hypothesis is that the church is a part, and a reflection, of a larger change throughout society, and I claim that this change depends much on the individualization and globalization during the last decades.The research is conducted through interviews with representatives from the Church ofSweden who are in charge of new religious activities. During these interviews we discuss their views on the change that has already taken place and is going on today.The interviews are then analyzed by applying rational choice theory on them. I discusswhether the Church can be seen as a producer of goods and services and if the churchgoers canbe seen as consumers of these goods and services.

In 2011, the new upper secondary school curriculum Lgy 11 set out to distinguish the characteristics of the two subjects Swedish and Swedish as a second language. This thesis analyzes the consequences, or rather the underlying premises for such a characterization with the contradictory ideologies of the multicultural society as a point of departure. Using theories of cultural and linguistic hegemony, the thesis applies an ideological critique to the comparative text analysis of the two curriculums. The aim is to reveal the underlying assumptions of the two student bases as representatives of the majority society and the minorities. The results show that the characterizations of the two subjects are dominantly made along the line of the multicultural experience versus linguistic and cultural heritage.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain the European Union was challenged partly by an institutionalized organization of the union, as well as by a socio-psychology awareness concerning the meaning of the European Union. The increase in European integration has generated a political collaboration where national understandings in identities are constantly being exposed for reconstruction. This results in a collective European identity where states are united in diversity.National identities are created when boundaries are set up in a relation to other states. In these identity constructions there are thoughts and questions raised such as who we are and who we are not. Ukraine and the European Union has, during a long time, had diversified preconceptions concerning who has been the others.

This essay deals with the rationale and aims for doing cultural or aesthetic activities and projects in schools, and gives special focus to a specific group of students, attending schools provided at special residential homes for young people (sa?rskilda ungdomshem). These homes receive young people with psychosocial and substance misuse problems and who show tendencies towards criminal behavior. The essay investigates how working with a cultural project in schools at these residential homes is justified and also elucidates how this specific group of students and their problems are constructed in the documents surrounding the project. The essay will further ponder over possible educational and pedagogical consequences of these constructions.The investigation has its theoretical frame work in curriculum theory.

 Inner resistanceThe aim of this study was to investigate the existence of an internal resistance to a work-related change in people who are long-term sick, and if this is related to an identification as ?long-term sick?. A second purpose to the study was to research in which way this internal resistance to a work-related change manifests and point to possible solutions. A qualitative study was conducted with interviews of experts and people on sick leave to illuminate the subject. The main result was divided into interviewed groups.

On the first of October 2012 the media reported that the women in the Ikea cataloguehad been airbrushed in the Saudi edition. Initially the blame was put on either theSaudi government the Islamic culture or the Saudi franchise. In the end it wasrevealed that the Swedish company Inter Ikea Systems had the full responsibility forIkeas actions and therefore was the culprit behind the airbrushing. On whoseinitiative or why the airbrushing was done the media never found out. These areanswers only Ikea has, although they remain unresponsive to these questionsthroughout the news portrayal.This study methodology uses a qualitative content analysis as framework to furtherinvestigate the news media with support of theoretical perspectives such as mediatheory, power relations and cultural differences.

In an organizational change process, motivated employees are considered an asset. Work motivation can both be seen as situational and as a stable individual characteristic. The present study attempts to investigate how the employees at the Social Insurance Office in Scania experience the present organizational change by focusing on work motivation and well-being. Both questionnaires and interviews were adopted to examine the area of interest. Findings indicate that the organizational change is considered chaotic but necessary by the employees.