The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the discourses of concepts related to diversity and ethnicity in Swedish cultural policy. It focuses on how the society is presented in different contexts and how people with a different ethnic origin than the majority, are represented in the cultural policy of the Swedish State. The study is restricted to concern immigrants. Six governmental cultural policy documents, reaching over a time period of eight years 1995-2003 are examined as follows: Which key terms are used in the presentations? Which contexts and discourses can be distinguished? Have the discourses changed over the time period examined, and if so, how? The theoretical starting point in the thesis is the discourse perspective of Laclau and Mouffe.

The following essay or thesis is a study over scientific endeavors in the fringe. It is a study of Riksorganisationen UFO-Sverige, whose proponents aim to make the UFO phenomenon (or phenomena) a subject of scientific scrutiny. To achieve this, the ufologists first have to redefine common concepts of ufology as pseudo science or religion, mainly by challenging definitions given by scientific sceptics on the one hand, and proponents of conspiracy theories or the new age environment on the other. Thus UFO-Sverige seeks to construct an alternative scientific identity in contrast to adversaries on both sides, each unwilling to give the UFO phenomenon any further examination. Following the work of Tomas Gieryn's sociological grip on questions of epistemology, especially concerning the social boundaries of science from other cultural categories through what has been labelled as epistemic boundary work, during which proponents of a particular field aim to achieve epistemic authority and thus the legitimate right to define what is and what is not science, I seek to analyze how questions of science and legitimacy are actualized in an intellectual environment or culture not broadly accepted as scientific.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate how diversity takes shape in children?s picture books published in Sweden. Twelve picture books, which touch the aspect of diversity in the categories of gender, ages, culture, nation, ethnicities, language, class, sexuality and functional disorder, were chosen from the Swedish National Council for Cultural Affairs catalogue for youth and children?s books 2006. They have been analysed with the conception of ikonotext and with the theory of Pierre Macherey?s image in the mirror, of how literature reflects the reality of society.

This Master thesis is made at the request of the local municipality of Uppsala in Sweden. The purpose of this work is to create a guiding management plan. Recreation, conservation of the cultivated landscape and the historical environment, conservation biology and the aim of the landowners are all considerd. The area is almost 34 hectares and located north of the centre of Uppsala. Landowners are the National Heritage Board, the diocese of Uppsala, the university of Uppsala, the local municipality of Uppsala and one private landowner.

This thesis concerns the mesolithic relation towards animals and hunting habits among people in Skateholm, Tågerup and Vedbæk - Bøgebakken. The aim is to look at the societies from a cultural point of view and demonstrate that the people living there identified themselves with animals and adapted their lives, their hunting and their burial customs according to rituals and believes concerning animals in their surroundings. The result is convincing and clearly shows that animals where treated differently in manors which can only be explained with specific cultural relations towards different kinds of animals..

This is the result of a 10 week long study about if player behaviors and choices are affectedby the surrounding colors in their environment. A number of players are asked to movethrough a virtual environment, while being clocked, where they have to make left and rightdecisions based on different colors (red, green, blue and gray). While most choices consist oftwo different colors, some use the same color. The result shows that the players most likelyprefer one color over another, and that they most likely prefer a non-neutral color over aneutral color. With these results and the interviews that are conducted the conclusion is madethat it is very likely the players choices are affected by the colors in the environment, but it isnot clear to say how they are affected..

This Masters Thesis is about the Swedish National Council for Cultural Affairs and the arms length principle. The principle is used to explain the separation of power between two parts with a common interest. The main purpose is to elucidate if, and if so in what way, the arms length principle can be used to explain the relation between the National Council for Cultural Affairs and the Ministry of Education and Culture, i.e. the Swedish government, but also to examine the structures of power and relations within the Council. In the thesis we show that in the field of cultural policy the content of the arm lengths principle varies due to the many interpretations of the meaning.

This is a paper about the social services waiting rooms. Our aim with the study has been to:?Describe and problematize the physical environment in social services waiting rooms. A wider purpose is to lift the question about the waiting room as a significant part of peoples encounter with the social services.? To be able to achieve this purpose, we have used two questions: What does the physical waiting room environment look like in social services in Stockholms län? How can we understand and problematize the physical environment factors impact on people who visits these environments? We have observed and photographed ten waiting rooms in ten different social services in Stockholms län.

Tail-biting in pigs is an animal welfare issue and in Sweden during 2002 the producers lost tree million Swedish crowns because of tail biting. This economic loss depends on the pigs which are discarded at slaughter because of tail biting. Tail biting can be separated into two stages, "pre-injury" and "injury". The aim of this study is to investigate if tail biting depends on environment or genetic background.A lot of research on the environments effects on the behaviour of pigs but not so much on the genetic effects has been performed. The frequency of tail biting in pig farms influence among others of environment enrichment, ventilation, gender and breed of the pig.

Att köra eller inte köra is a qualitative study aiming to show how environmentally conscious people who utilizes cars deal with their dissonant behavior, but at the sametime maintain an identity as environmentally conscious. The study is based on the fact that a third of those who drive cars in the municipality of Växjö would like to decrease their use of cars while at the same time having the infrastructural conditions to utilize other means of transportation. The study investigates inner obstacles in the form of habits and lifestyle, but also the different strategies the motorists use to reduce their cognitive dissonance and maintain a green identity. The indicators show that the reason the majority of the motorists continue to utilize cars is part due to inner obstacles (it's adeeply rooted habit, but also a big part of their lifestyles), part due to that the individuals have defenses for their use of their cars, defenses designed to have a dissonance reducing effect. The indicators also show that the motorists value their family higher than the environment, and in this way they can legitimize many of their car uses.

The purpose of this study was to illustrate how professionals, who work with psychosocialproblems among children, look at the impact of social factors on behavior that causes ADHDdiagnosis and at the relationship between social factors and the increased diagnosis that hasoccurred in recent years. To answer our purpose, we chose a qualitative approach byinterviewing six professionals who had different professional affiliations. We analyzed theresults using systems theory and attachment theory. The results showed that the professionalssaw various social factors that influenced the behaviors that cause ADHD diagnosis, particularlytroublesome growing environment and the school environment that requires greater cognitiveability and social skills of children today. They also saw that social factors could have an impacton the increase of diagnoses, particularly that the diagnosis can result in that the understandingchanges and that it is considered easier to get extra support at school with a diagnosis..

This bachelor´s thesis analyzes the video game Red Dead Redemption and the historical use of the environment and atmosphere in the game. The theory and method used is media research and social memory studies. Two questions were asked: how does Red Dead Redemeption convey and produce the historical environment and the historical atmosphere. Furthermore subqueries/criterias were used to help answer the main questions.The analysis was divided into two parts, the first part we analyze and discuss the games historical environment and the second part analyzes and discusses the historical atmosphere of the game.The conclusion is that both the historical environment and the historical atmosphere is present in the game through picture and sound, the text only works as a guide. The picture and sound live in a symbiotic relationship and depend on each other to fully immerse the player to the game.

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss how agents create their culture outside of their ?own? fields.What does this way of creating a culture mean for groups already existing on the field? Who ownsthe power to construct their own subject positions? Through a discourse analysis, I analyse thesequestions through articles and interviews treating two cultural fields which I call ?The hip Berlin?and ?Swedish hip hop culture?. I argue that, depending on a persons priviliges, one owns the powernot only to construct subject positions of ones own, but also for persons with less privileges in theexisting hegonomy of society..

The following essay or thesis is a study over scientific endeavors in the fringe. It is a study of Riksorganisationen UFO-Sverige, whose proponents aim to make the UFO phenomenon (or phenomena) a subject of scientific scrutiny. To achieve this, the ufologists first have to redefine common concepts of ufology as pseudo science or religion, mainly by challenging definitions given by scientific sceptics on the one hand, and proponents of conspiracy theories or the new age environment on the other. Thus UFO-Sverige seeks to construct an alternative scientific identity in contrast to adversaries on both sides, each unwilling to give the UFO phenomenon any further examination. Following the work of Tomas Gieryn's sociological grip on questions of epistemology, especially concerning the social boundaries of science from other cultural categories through what has been labelled as epistemic boundary work, during which proponents of a particular field aim to achieve epistemic authority and thus the legitimate right to define what is and what is not science, I seek to analyze how questions of science and legitimacy are actualized in an intellectual environment or culture not broadly accepted as scientific.

The purpose of this paper is to compare two different portfolio strategies consisting of insider transactions and stock recommendations and examine whether they posses any information advantage.  The portfolios are balanced once every three-, six- and twelve- months in the period of 2007-2009. Our results show a pattern for these investment strategies. The portfolio consisting of insider transactions generates a positive return in equity in a negative market environment and the opposite reaction in a positive environment. The result for the portfolio consisting of stock recommendations show a positive return of equity in positive environment and the opposite effect in negative environment. The pattern that has been observed can be classified as an anomaly.