The purpose of this study is to shine a light at the Swedish americans impressions and attitudes against the American society from the perspective of modernization and cultural attributes. This, with a reference frame of the deeply politically rooted European conception of America as a threat to the cultural well being, and as a thriving materialistic and progress bound constitution.The result shows that the attitudes against America in the descriptions were not all comparable with the conception that was conducted in Europe. However, the experiences altered whereas the study attends two different periods of time. The experiences differenced due to the growing exposure to cultural diversity and a modernization that grew faster in America than anywhere in the world. Not to mention the change of experiences and expectations that was with brought from a changing atmosphere in Sweden.

The number of students who finished special upper secondary school for pupils with intellectual disabilities without an employment has drastically decreased over the last decades. The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge of how career counselors at special upper secondary schools collaborate with the Employment Service, and how the special upper secondary school prepares their pupils for working life. The collection of data started with a national questionnaire survey which was directed to career counselors at schools.The result shows that the collaboration appears foremost in the pupils last year in special upper secondary school, and that the special upper secondary schools do not use the Employment Service's assistance to any great extent. In addition, the collaborative process consists of both inhibiting and promoting factors.The results also indicates that the collaboration between the special upper secondary schools and the local labor market can be developed more for the pupils to gain experience from working life..

This paper presents a study of the Swedish public service television broadcaster - Sveriges Televisions (SVT) transfer pricing model. The aim of the thesis is to examine the motives for using transfer pricing from a theoretical perspective and if SVT?s transfer pricing model fulfils these motives. We will also examine any potential managerial problems the existing transfer-pricing model might cause and discuss how these could be solved. We have in our study found that the main motive for using transfer pricing within SVT is to allocate internal resources as efficiently as possible.

Asset management in insurance companies differs from conventional asset management to the extent that respect has to be taken to both assets and the commitments the insurance company has towards its customers. A model that has proven to fit well regarding the matching of assets and liabilities is the Asset Liability Management Model (ALM model). In addition to the matching in the balance sheet, the ALM model can be used in a company's work with strategic portfolio allocation by applying it as a basis for analyzing investment strategies with expected risk and return. From this, the ALM model also becomes relevant for calculating key figures according to the legal framework Solvens II which includes laws and regulations regarding the demands on economical strength (solvens) of insurance companies.Hence, the goal of this masters thesis has been to, on behalf of Bliwa Livförsäkring, create an ALM model to support the asset management department of Bliwa in their work with defining a credible way of analyzing the future risk and return of Bliwa's asset portfolio and insurance undertakings.The ALM model generally consist of four submodels, the scenario model, the liability model, the asset model and the company model, where the scenario model often is named as the core of the ALM model. The course of action has been to develop these submodels individually, with focus on the scenario model.

This study aims to investigate how federations manage to balance the economies of scale through collaboration and autonomy. This is done through a case study on Länsförsäkringar. The lack of modern research on federations makes the federative structure an interesting field of study. Previous research has shown a general perception that an increased pressure on efficiency and economies of scale creates a stronger common unit that eventually creates an imbalance in the federation. It is therefore interesting to look at the balance, which exists between the member units and the common unit of a federation.

The aim of this study was to explore and describe how four teachers work with literacy in preschool and grade one, ages 6 and 7. The aim was also to explore the progression of reading and writing as well as the collaboration between teachers in preschool and grade one. The study has a qualitative approach and data was collected through observations and interviews. The findings indicate that teachers in preschool have similar activities and approach to what guides the work. Regarding teachers in grade one it shows that they both are working with reading and writing in a varied way.

Marketing research has acknowledged the concept of authenticity. It is argued that consumers in modern society increasingly search for something real, in contrast to what they perceive as mediated and distorted. Producers of regional food brands has acknowledged this trend, and started to market their products as being authentic. Given the potential practical and theoretical contributions in studying the concept of authenticity in this context, this study aims to explore how consumers perceive these claims of authenticity. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to extend knowledge on how consumers come to perceive a regional food brand as authentic.

This essay deals with ruins from the perspective of their cultural values ??and the impact of add-ons, protective add-ons and caring actions affect these values. The issues in the essay are; What are the cultural values of a ruin?  How have ruins been used?  How are ruins treated today?Initially the definition of the concept ?ruin? is discussed, what is a ruin? A building has an architectural biography: the creation, destruction, change and the decay. The concept of ruin is considered to be a state of this decay, rather than a dead building.

Rapid development in the realms of electronic publishing has had a profound impact on information services in general and the academic library in particular. Since mid 1990´s an increasingly number of scholarly journals and other information resources have been made available electronically. Electronic books are the newest electronic service in the hybrid library and can be seen as the third wave in the digital library. Although electronic books have for a long time existed as electronic texts such as digitalized classics or other texts in the public domain, it is not until recently that e-books have been distributed and packaged in a commercial form. As more e-book models are being developed, libraries are being forced to take e-books into consideration when planning their information services.The aim of this master thesis is to describe the first stage of implementation of the new electronic media, the electronic book or e-book, in Swedish academic libraries.

In the 1940s the Swedish town planning was inspired by the English city development with the concepts of neighbourhood and community planning. In order to promote democratic development and solidarity the ideal would be to create community centers with full service. Community centers are part of the building of the suburbs during the postwar period. The buildings in Sweden from 1940 - and -50s were built with the intentions to be good homes for all regardless of income, class and status. Collective solutions to individual problems were characteristic of the Swedish policy during this time.

This study rises up an untouched area of ??research where the relationship between newly arrived parents and teachers is examined from a structural perspective. Previous research has looked only at the interaction between parents and teacher; this study is thus a theoretical contribution to the research. The aim of the study is met by examining the perceptions newly arrived parents have of their meeting with the Swedish school, the relationship with their children?s teacher, cooperation, collaboration between home and school, as well as their own influence in their children's learning.

The environmental debate is more intensive than ever before and the demands on companies increase. There are a number of methods to make it easier for the companies to fulfil the demands. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) end ecodesign are some of the methods that can be used. Syntronic AB has the possibility to reduce the products´ environmental impact in the design phase. Therefore it is important for the company to make it possible to visualize the negative environmental impacts a product can cause in an easy way. It is also important to visualize for there clients if any improvement is possible. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a simplified model.

In this Masters thesis the image of the public library in the local press and in the eyes of the public is examined. The questions posed to examine this are: - What activities of the public library are described in the local press? - What activities does the public associate with the public library? - What functions and roles of the public library can be found in the articles and interviews and how are they expressed? - What opinions of the public library and hereto related activities can be found in the articles and interviews? This study is based on an analysis of 127 articles, published in Borås Tidning during a period of six months, and of interviews with 35 people from Sjuhäradsbygden. To analyse the articles and the interviews Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen´s model of roles for the library has been used. The model includes four roles for the library: the library as a cultural centre, a knowledge centre, an information centre and a social centre.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine the ways in which culture and cultural policy are being articulated in the process of Lund's application to become Sweden's European Cultural Capital of 2014.I have used Dorte Skot-Hansen's three cultural political rationalities: the humanistic-, the sociological- and the instrumental rationality, as well as and Jenny Johannisson's extension of those into three cultural-political discourses, as sensitizing concepts in my analysis. The questions raised are: How are the three rationalities/discourses articulated in the chosen central documents and in the process surrounding them? Which themes and arguments dominate the chosen documents?The main objects of my study have been four texts that have been produced in the applicationprocess: a Prestudy, a Plan of action, a Broschure and a Cultural policy. Along with them local political protocols, newspaper articles and other related material have been used. The research method applied was a qualitative eclectical textual analysis with emphasis on the content and on tracing the way the rationalities were expressed in the material.The rationalities were all found to be articulated in the four texts.

The aim of this bachelor thesis has been to examine and develop our own understanding about how young people in Sweden (16-29 years of age), take part in cultural activities. As librarians it is important to know what kind of activities and interests this particular group has. With Pierre Bourdieu?s theoretical framework towards habitus and capital we are interested to see if there is a connection between one?s cultural use and background, if different access to capital with or within groups has an affect or not. With both statistics and interviews with people within our target, we believe this data has been sufficient enough to conduct a good and valid study.