AbstractIn the literature on multiculturalism and group rights there is a strong tradition that sees diversity as something directly paradoxal to unity. In this tradition, scholars put forward a view of multiculturalism as a divisive and exclusionary process which breaks down the cohesion and unity of society. Related to this notion is that of a neutral and universally valid frame of reference in which political dilemmas can be solved; for example a neutral civil sphere where the ?true essence? of society lies. In this essay I attempt to criticise these two notions.

This is a study of how democracy is affected by regionalization. The study focuses on values related to the democracy; these values are representative, transparency, participation, anchoring of decisions and accountability. The case study for this essay is the Regional Development Council of Värmland case study of Region Värmland.1997 a proposition was put forward the Swedish government about changes in responsibilities regarding four Swedish counties. It was decided that Kalmar, Gotland, Skåne and Västra Götaland County would be part of pilot project with extended regional autonomy.Region Värmland was formed at 2001 as a Region Development Council and was at 2007 transformed to a co-cooperative body. Region Värmland has an indirectly elected council, i.e.

This Bachelor?s thesis examines and describes the governmental cultural policy in Sweden. The relation between the state and the market in society is in focus. Earlier research is used to describe the development of cultural policy in Sweden after the world war two until today. Two governmental bills are examined and described, one from 1974 and one from 2009.

This is an interview- and literature study that discusses teaching about the Second World War and the Holocaust, while working with the basic values in grade 7-9.The purpose with this examination is to see how teachers of history in grade 7-9 choose to teach about the Second World War and the Holocaust, how they work to integrate the basic values in their education and whether the teachers? education can be sustained by the Swedish school curricula.In this study I?ve been doing qualitative interviews with five teachers of history in grade 7-9 from different schools. I have also perused the Swedish school curricula and read some literature and studies about different ways of dealing with the subject: the Holocaust.According to the central parts of the Swedish curricula, LGR 2011, the fields about the Holocaust and the 20.century World Wars are to be studied during grade 7-9. All my respondents in the study teach about this think that the most important thing with this complex time in history, is to give the students a deeper understanding for the time leading up to the beginning of the  Second World War in 1939, and why the Holocaust actually took place.Regarding the work with the basic values, all the five respondents agree on the fact that, this subject shall permeate the entire work at school, all the time, every day, but that it?s absolutely essential while studying the Holocaust.

How can we use modern X-ray technology to raise awareness of the information that is hidden in historic upholstery? The materials and techniques add information to the history object in question and  about a profession that is sparsely documented in our country. The knowledge we have today has largely been obtained by studying damaged upholstery, or by removing the show cover and upholstery, a technique which involves high risk of damaging the upholstery. X-ray technology offers  a non- intrusive way to examine historical upholstery.Through case studies, I examined four artefacts. The artefacts went trough an inititial visual exam before being transported to The National Heritage Board in Visby where they underwent a thorough X-ray exam.

In this paper, I design a new concept for a patio at Hotel and Restaurant Villa Anna in Odinslund, Uppsala, Sweden. Through this design, I examine how urban farming can thrive in a restaurant-context. The purpose of the design is to give the visitor a sense of the core values of the cuisine and to strengthen the sense of place by storytelling. My methods are comprised of a literature study on urban farming and storytelling as well as a discussion with the res-taurateur Rafael Löfstedt. I create a story of the place by examining its historical background and connect it to the current philosophy of the Villa Anna restaurant.

In this essay I reflect on what makes a good preschool teacher today. I discuss the importance of education, the importance of experience and practical knowledge, but also the importance of capacity for self-reflection and listening. I bring up examples from my workplace, where some think more about their limitations than on what and how much they actually can. Others are more satisfied by what they can and see less of their limits. Some are also lack of the will to see differently and to do changes.

AbstractA Problem to Every SolutionThe Corrymeela Community, René Girard and the ambiguous pluralismThe main purpose of this study is to examine how Girard´s ideas of society, culture andreligion have become part of the reflexion in the praxis of Corrymeela Community through the work of Roel Kaptein and how this praxis can shed light over the work with dissonances of faith and values in education in RE, Social Studies and other subjects.In earlier publications I have studied how dissonances of faith and values can beunderstood in educational settings and in connection with issues of interreligious dialogue.The extensive discussion of how differences in culture, religion and value in a pluralisticsociety are to be analysed and treated in pedagogical reflexion seems to increasingly occupyactors in different parts of the educational system. It is obvious that these issues also arebrought into focus as an important field of research. My main interest in this paper is to study how a reconciliation group in the middle of the conflict in Northern Ireland has developed a view of conflict reason and conflict resolution under the influence of the French researcher René Girard and what aspects of this study that can improve the reflection over pluralism and dissonances of faith and values in everyday praxis in education.For a period of more than a decade I have been in contact with actors in the peace process inNorthern Ireland in connection to different educational projects. The attempts to analyse the different aspects of ?The Troubles? and the efforts to find ways out of conflicts and civil war are many and the literature on subjects related to these tragic history of social, cultural and religious conflicts is difficult to survey.

The purpose with this work is to describe the language that is built around the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in Sweden. Our questions are: What does the professional field look like; who writes, about what and for which kind of readers? How do they describe the expressions and the upcoming of CFS? For which reasons can CFS be considered as a medical diagnosis/illness? How can CFS be understood from a social perspective? Our theoretical starting point is a social constructive theory and also Karin Johannisson's theory about medicalization and Foucault?s theory about power. We have from a literature-exposition of Swedish articles from 1989 to 2006, done a social constructive discourse analysis with help from Laclau & Mouffe's discourse theory, and Fairclough's model of social practices. In our textual analysis we found three dominating discourses: A medical discourse, a social/cultural discourse and a general/popular discourse.

This essay presents a picture of swedish reggae listeners and how their love of music give meaning to their lives and unite them in a sub-culture. Based on interviews with six young men about their involvement in reggae, it also investigates the relationship between music and identity, or more clearly; how identity is expressed through music. Furthermore, I discuss the notion of taste according to Bourdieu, and argue against his statement that taste in music affirms the class and social background of an individual. Results from my empirical data have indicated that reggae music is difficult to associate to a distinct lifestyle, which inclines me to argue that it has managed to transcend phenomena such as ethnicity, class and cultural affiliation..

As a result of my fascination for nature I have chosen to study the possibilities to introduce natural environments on schoolyards. Too many schoolyards are lacking vegetation and many of them look like sterile asphalt deserts. The master thesis consists of two parts. The first part is based on literature studies and the second part in which findings from part one are put into practice. Five examples are presented; four schoolyards in Malmö; Kryddgårdsskolan, Kirsebergsskolan, Rörsjöskolan and Lindängeskolan and one in Kalmar; Åbyskolan. Malmö Naturskola has been working with the chosen areas on the schoolyards in Malmö.

During the course of history, the world have come to see powerful nations rise and fall, religions spread and diminish ? and all too often there have been violent struggles between religious groups and secular forces, a fact that we still see in our world today. In the West, we often hear about the violent and fundamental dimensions of Islam. Buddhism is rarely a part of the equation in a western context, regarding violence. A common perception is the picture of Buddhism as a guardian of non-violent principles and values.

This Masters thesis is performed at the request of the National Board of Forestry in order to investigate how the Swedish municipalities use their forests. The study is of general character with emphasis on the social values of the forests. The municipalities? purposes with their forests have varied over time, but lately the social aspects have been recognised as interesting. The social values of the forests can be defined as the values from the forests that contribute to the wealth of humans. This has socio-economic importance for the municipalities. The study was performed as a quantitative questionnaire survey, complemented with qualitative interviews.

This thesis attempts to clarify the impact of cultural differenceson customer expectations of service level. Furthermore, wewant to determine whether or not expectations of service differenough to be quantifiable between two countries, Sweden andthe US, mostly regarded as similar in business practices. The conclusion showed that higher ratings on four of Hofstede?s five cultural indexes were associated with higher customer service expectations overall, and in all four SERVQUAL dimensions. This research contributes to retail internationalization and customer expectations theory.

Recently, there have been intense discussions about the humanities and their role in society. Internationally, as well as in a Swedish context, the humanities have been regarded to be in a state of crisis. However, these discussions usually demonstrate a lack of historical perspectives based on thorough empirical research. The notion of a crisis needs to be historicized.In this study, a case is being examined where the relationship between science and society was renegotiated. In the context of World War II, a discourse has been identified in a borderland between science and politics through an analysis of Swedish journals and anthologies during the time period 1937-1947.