The main purpose of this thesis is to examine how the European Union through the Directorate- General (DG) of Education and Culture, are calling forth a constructed sense of European identity amongst the citizens of the Union.It is a discourse analysis, which can be described in twofold. Firstly, it is a mapping of the European discourse; i.e. how the European Union defines the identity it seeks to mobilise. Secondly, it examines whether or not there are similarities in the European discourse of identity and the traditional nation-building discourse of national identity.According to this thesis a European identity is articulated in cultural terms, whereby its members are said to share the same values and a common cultural heritage.To bring the people of Europe closer together and to deepen awareness of their "common" history, the European Union encourages all manner of meetings and exchange schemes between Europeans. Although its goal is to develop a feeling of belonging to a shared culture, the EU is also keen to preserve the specific aspects of Europe's many cultures.

Communication is an important part of any multi-agent system. There are different ways of communicating and they have different effects on a multi-agent system. This project describes and evaluates two different ways of communication, implicit and explicit. To compare the two methods, two experiments have been executed. The result of the experiments have been compared and discussed.

The purpose of this essay is to illustrate how an organisation with several different cultural activities, such as a regional museum, works with anemphasis on participation. The essay focuses on Kulturparken Småland AB, which encourages the public to be more involved in its activities. Aqualitative approach is used, including nine interviews with employees at theorganisation. A number of theories form the basis of this study: institutionaltheory, which focuses on the context of the organisation, Bourdieu?s theoriesof different capital and Abbott?s theory regarding professionals.

In recent times statistical findings suggesting a deteriorating mental health among teenagers, have been published. Not only did I find the lack of an all-inclusive analysis problematic, but also the fact that the studies themselves where often insufficient. Thus my purpose has been to chart these statistical studies, and then scrutinize the results.My method has been inspired by critical theory, where an interpretive starting point, self-reflection, and the idea that man and society interacts as a whole, is of great importance. Aside from the above mentioned studies, I have also employed secondary empirical data from TV, newspapers and the Internet. My own experience as a social worker has also been an important resource for this paper.

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.

This master thesis aims to examine the methods of the conservation field and their visionabout maintenance and change, in terms of liturgical values. This is to be able todetermine if there is a need to develop the methods that the field of conservation has tosafeguard the intangible cultural heritage of the churches.This is mainly a literature review, focusing on different tutorials from the Swedish nationalheritage board, and different texts on liturgy aswell as Unesco's Convention for theSafeguarding of intagible Heritage (2003), ratified in Sweden in January 2011. A casestudy of the practical work has been carried out on three churches that have undergonechange. The application process and the results were important for this study.The conclusion is that the conservation field have ambitions to preserve the liturgicalvalues, but they do not have sufficiently developed methods to do so. Nevertheless, itappears that most cases of change in churches, increases the liturgical values..

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.

Hur företag skall bedriva sin omvärldsbevakning har blivit ett allt mer aktuellt ämne i och med ökad globalisering och hårdnande konkurrens. Att förstå marknadens förutsättningar och att kunna agera på tidiga signaler blir en allt mer kritisk faktor i företagens överlevnad. Jag har i denna studie undersökt hur ett svenskt företag kallat Kortbolaget, med den skandinaviska ägaren Datakonsultföretaget, skulle kunna gå tillväga för att skapa en lämplig struktur för att bedriva sin omvärldsbevakning. Kortbolaget bedriver för närvarande ingen strukturerad omvärldsbevakning, men visar på en vilja att ändra detta..

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 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.

This master of science thesis intends to examine how the established innovation theoriesinteracts with the social and cultural phenomena arising from the reduction in communicationcosts as a result of the development of the internet.The aim is to present a knowledge inventory of attitudes to and experiences of an openapproach, with emphasis on collaborative innovation, in product and service developmentdriven companies in different fields. The studied theories and the empirical results forms thebasis for an analysis of how companies can benefit from the diversified knowledge that existsoutside their borders as well as an exploration of the potential for this kind of knowledgeexchange to act as a catalyst for innovation.The theoretical part of the study is based essentially on two tracks: (1) innovation theories witha focus onopen innovation and user innovation, and (2) a broad review of how theories ofdiversified knowledgeand collective intelligence has become possible to apply in an innovationcontext. The empirical part of the study is based on material obtained from semi-structuredinterviews with respondents from six companies.The results show that companies have implemented unstructured innovation initiatives withoutany formal links to the structured product development processes, which are part of thecompanies core activities. The main conclusions include the following insights: There is a needfor structured links between the unstructured initiatives and the core activities, which makes itpossible to take promising ideas to market. The companies also have to lose some control of theunstructured initiatives; consequently it is impossible to pinpoint what the outcome will be.

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.

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.

The aim of the study was to examine which approach future social workers have regarding specific competence in the meeting with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer clients. Previous research shows that LGBTQ people have a low confidence towards social services, police and courts and say they face discrimination and degrading treatment to a greater extent than the heterosexual population. Research shows that education and better skills of LGBTQ culture among professionals can change the situation.The essay is based on a model of cultural competence in working with sexual minorities and people with a transgender expression. The model defines the meaning of an LGBTQ perspective and is designed to improve social work with LGBTQ clients.The study is quantitative and empirical data consists of 203 survey responses from students with a long experience of the social work education. The analysis of the results is based on the cultural competence three principles; attitudes, knowledge and skills.