The aim of this study is to try to explain the process using both an actor driven perspective as well as a structural perspective examining the reasons why the County Council of Värmland wants to merge with Region Västra Götaland. The answers to the following research questions are sought to shed light on the problem: What constrained the discretion of  the political actors in the choice of region to merge with? Which role did  different political actors play? Does the study provide Game Theory, from Rational Choice theory,  and Path Dependency, from Historic Institutionalism, a new perspective and strength especially  when bringing them together? The study is limited to two policy areas, health care and regional development policy. The structural background is drawn upon the Annual Report 2008 of the County Council Värmland, the Regional Development Program and Regional Transport Infrastructure Plan 2010-2021 by Region Värmland. The chronological order of decisions and events is drawn upon protocols from various regional political organs all linked to the municipal of Värmland and the correspondence between the officials of Värmland?s municipal and the Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency of the State.

This paper focuses on the Swedish migration discourse and investigates if and to what extent it is dominated by a security perspective. Analysing a number of official texts and documents I want to show how the discourse describes migrants and what implications this carries with it for the migrants and for the Swedish migration politics. Through discourse analysis I have analysed whose security that is prioritised, the Swedish or the refugees, who is the refugee and the asylum seeker, and who is the illegal migrant in the Swedish official migration discourse. As a theoretical frame for the analysis I have used theories on migration and security. These include theories on the securitisation of politics, the globalisation and the creation of political identity from the nation state perspective and theories on the connection between migration and security.My results show that a security discourse is dominating the Swedish official migration discourse and is therefore defining our reality and the identities of refugees, asylum seekers and illegal migrants.

The aim of this study was to map the intellectual base at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS) at the University Collage of Borås, and to compare this intellectual base to the intellectual base of the research area Library and Information Science. This was done by analysing the citations in publications published, between the year of 2001 to the first quarter of 2006, by researchers at the institution, using the technique of author cocitation analysis. Cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling, statistical techniques that are traditional i the author cocitation analysis, formed an objective map of the intellectual base at the SSLIS. This map was then compared with three prior studies, that used the same technique to map the intellectual base of the research area. The result shows that the map of the intellectual base at the SSLIS consists of the specialities: user studies, library studies, culture/cultural policy, information retrieval, bibliometrics and information in organisations.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the functions of the public library for parents of infants and how they see the ideal library. The research questions are: How do parents of infants use the library and what are their experience of it? What opinions and wishes do parents of infants have regarding the library? How can library services be developed to better match the needs of the parents of infants? The theoretical approach is based on Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model of the public library?s functions and the model of classification by Ellen-Merete Duvold and Gunnar Sæbø. To answer my research questions I have carried out three focus-group interviews with parents of infants. The study revealed that the public library functions as a cultural centre, a social centre, a knowledge centre and, to a certain extent, an information centre for the parents.

Title:Balanced scorecard in the public sector - the balancing of conflicting objectives.Level:Final assignment for Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.Authors:Erika Sundström and Lisette Lundstedt.Tutor:Stig Sörling and Tomas Källquist.Date:2014-05-20.Purpose:The purpose of our study, from a management perspective, is to increase understanding of how the public sector can develop and use the balanced scorecard to balance conflicting objectives.Method:Hermeneutic approach, Literature review, Qualitative case study.Result and conclusion:Under certain conditions, the balanced scorecard can help to deal with conflicting objectives in a public organization. Stakeholders and objectives are important factors for a balanced control. This is due to the fact that many different stakeholders often leads to the creation of conflicting objectives. Numerous and unclear objectives lead to both conflict and uncertainty. The organization?s structure and culture are other factors that also influence.

The purpose with this essay is to find out the role of mythology in history in Swedish elementary schools to day. The questions I used to fulfill the purpose in my essay are these: How is the relationship between the school subject history and northern mythology, (what is myth, what is history) how does history and myth being linked together? And How is the practical use of northern mythology shaped in to days school, How does the teacher form the education in northern mythology and what controls it? The method I used was an interview, a case study and a literature study, based on the didactical questions how, why and what.The mythology is motivated by the guidelines and goals, set up by the Swedish government, and is supposed to give the student history knowledge and thereby help the student to build up their identity. It is also supposed to give knowledge about the Swedish and Nordic cultural heritage. The role the mythology has is to support the history education.According to the interview in this essay the northern mythology is given a central place in the education in the Swedish elementary school today.

It is important that children develop their communicating skills to be able to interact withother persons in different social contexts. Without the necessary skills, the child will struggleto understand others, as well as to be understood. My qualitative research takes place in a preschoolclass at a primary school in Stockholm, where I from a socioCultural perspective onteaching and learning aim to clarify how the students? ability to develop their linguisticperformance and their communicative competence is stimulated within this primary preschool?seducational framework. Empirical data was collected both through observations ofthe daily activities in the pre-school class as well as through interviews of three employedteachers.My research indicates that the educational framework in this pre-school class is structured tocomply with the official Swedish Curriculum, Lpo.

The purpose of this essay is to do a narratological analysis of Utvandrarna by Vilhelm Moberg to see how the form affects the theme of freedom and liberation. I used narratology as the method of analysis and my questions for the text regards the significance of the narrator, the use of focalization, the powers, helpers and opponents, the locations and spaces, and how these aspects affect the theme. In my analysis of the novel I found that the narration took place in three levels. This gave the story different perspectives of the theme; an outer perspective, a semi-distant perspective and a more personal perspective. The focalization of the main characters creates sympathies, and the focalization of non-main characters gives the reader an outer perspective on the characters.

This essay studies the funnel-beaker ceramic in connection with the megalith graves in South Scandinavia. In my work I have described the nature of ceramics and looked on the crockery types and ornamentation and then discussed the use of the material in a ritual perspective. In the first part I have focused on the critical aspects you have to think about when you do a study like this one. In the second part of this essay I have done a case study, with the ceramic material, in three passages graves in the area of Falbygden, Western Sweden and studied the ceramic material and the nature of it in South Scandinavia as well. Then in the third I discussed the potential use, there is two, of the ceramic material in general of South Scandinavia and looked at it in a ritual perspective..

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Local history collections are fairly common among the Swedish public libraries and these collections often contain older or rare material. There are no national policies concerning the preservation of rare books at the public libraries, and the librarians of public libraries may lack that knowledge. The aim of this study is to examine librarians? attitudes toward their libraries? local history collections. We interviewed five librarians in the county of Västra Götaland and also made a small observation study of their local history collections.

The Catalan movement of Independence is a well debated subject in Spanish news for the last decade. This thesis aims to examine what kind of identityarguments that spanish versus catalan newspapers make about the independence movement, in relation to nationalism and national identity. This is to deeper the understanding about the current complex situation in the Iberian Peninsula. The research shows that identityarguments about the independence movement presented by catalonian newspapers clearly put focus on identifying the ethnic and cultural reasons for the growing nationalism in the region, as well as discussing the political possibilities and obstacles of a sovereign Catalonia. In comparison, the identityarguments presented by spanish newspapers has another view of the situation, where the political aspect of the nationalistic catalan movement, identify the process as defying the Spanish Constitution and challenging the traditional historic unity of Spain.

This paper analyzes governance of cultural and ethnic integration. The study has a comparative perspective between five municipalities in Skåne. One aim in this thesis is to clearify the ratio between the state and municipal authority and how municipalities exercise their autonomy. I analyze the advantages and disadvantages in different governance methods linked to how the municipalities are working in practice and what problem the integration policy is intended to eliminate. I also resolve the influence of officials and citizens in the policy process.My conclusion is that direct ruling to a large extent is limited by indirect control.

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Numerous studies have showed that Swedish municipalities are responsible for several of the activities that concern children and their rights, e.g. school and health care. Furthermore, the Convention of the Rights of the Child is an international agreement that Sweden has signed and ratified which also implies the obligations that Swedish municipalities have. The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare, from a social justice perspective, how children?s rights are being emphasized and how children?s opinions are being taken into consideration at the municipality level in Sweden.