Policy documents in the public library field, such as the library legislation, local political goals and intra-library plan documents, often include ambitious but ambiguous formulations. This two years master?s thesis examines the relationship between four policy documents and library practice in a local context. The theoretical framework is inspired by a sociocultural theory developed by the Swedish professor of pedagogical psychology Roger Säljö. The theory emphasizes the importance of context to learning and development.The thesis? method is a case study.

The principal questions that are high lightened in this study are: How is the discrimination of the Indigenous people in Latin-America represented in the works of Jose María Arguedas and Miguel Angel Asturias? How are these two authors interrelated in terms of the defense of a cultural belonging? And finally, can these be associated to Paulo Coelho?s narrative content and techniques?This work shows how, as Nelson Gonzalez-Ortega names it, a narrative discourse of resistance (based on the consequences of the cultural merging of the European and Latin-American people) is expressed and transformed into modern literature. It shows how the works of these authors protect and transmit the interests and the cultural origins of the Latin-American Indigenous people. These origins are expressed by language, myths, storytelling techniques and the presentation of an alternative perspective of the world. It also shows, through analysis of their writing, how some of these authors as dual cultural human beings struggled to balance the two cultural elements they are constituted of.Focus will be on Asturias Hombrez de Maiz, Arguedas Los ríos profundos and Coelhos 11 minutos and El Zahir..

In this thesis, we have analyzed the Swedish debate about whether to impose a national canon, and make it compulsory in school curricula. Cecilia Wikström, a Liberal MP in Sweden, made the suggestion in July 2006, and the focus of our analysis is the subsequent debate during July and August 2006. Our materials are polemical articles from three Swedish newspapers, which we have examined to find the main ideas and arguments behind the various standpoints. Three issues have been our main focus; first, we have analyzed which concepts of culture the various debaters have used, where we have seen a difference between an anthropological and an aesthetical concept, but, surprisingly, found that there isn?t a very strong correlation between an aesthetical concept of culture and being pro-canon, or between an anthropological concept of culture and being anti-canon.

This essay seeks, by applying to theories of nationalism, to explain the reasoning behind the Russian annexation of Crimea and to understand the ideology and nationalistic influences in Russian foreign policy in the case of the Ukraine crisis and the annexation of Crimea. The argumental analysis exemplifies the nationalistic tendencies of Vladimir Vladimirovitj Putin and the Russian foreign actions and attempts to specify a nationalistic motif in the case of Crimea and in Russian foreign policy. The study seeks to illustrate tendencies in Russian foreign policy and to show what can be expected of Russia in the near future..

Officially, the EU gender policy since 2000 has been guided by the strategy of Gender Mainstreaming. This strategy aims to promote gender equality and is informed by a feminist ontology which stipulates that women are structurally subordinated.In this essay, I examine whether the European Commission has adequately adhered to this gender policy in its free trade negotiations with the ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) countries as part of the Cotonou Agreement. As a result of my text analysis of documents related to the negotiations, opinion pieces by interested actors and policy papers of the EU, I find that the Commission does not act in accordance to its stated gender policy.To explain this discrepancy between policy intent and actions, I employ postliberal feminist theory and Robert Putnam's Two-Level Game Theory Model. By analyzing statistics and published research, I explore how gender issues are being represented politically on a domestic and international level.My findings show that a key cause of this discrepancy lies in the low levels of female participation in the political institutions of the EU and ACP; a lack of participation that is especially pronounced in the area of international economics. In explaining the constraints on female participation and the prospects of full implementation of the EU's gender policy in the international political economy, I emphasize the role of culturally and historically gendered institutions..

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.

This paper discuss the possibilities to transfer the Danish labour market policy, called flexicurity, to Sweden. There are two main purposes of this essay. The first purpose is to discuss the reasons why the Danish labour market policy could be interesting for Sweden. The second purpose is to investigate which obstacles that might occur during the transfer. For guidance I have used two startingpoints which highlights the Danish flexicurity's pros and cons.

The Swedish government published their current proposition concerning cultural politics,Tid för kultur in 2009. Due to this proposition, culture is considered a basic human right we all deserve to be provided with. It contained goals and guidelines for how to enable culture to all citizens, to integrate and enrich the state, the county councils? and municipalities? work with diversity and multi culture in their culture-based institutes. However, there seems to be a lack of strategies in the issue of how to provide our nondependent elderly, suffering age related handicaps and diseases, with this proclaimed necessity.In recent years, there has been a lot of research proving the link between human wellbeing and a stimulating environment.

This work is about Cuban music and my relationship to it. My study contains two different parts. In the first one I try to give a short summary of Cuban music history. The second part is about possibilities and problems that can arise in the meeting with foreign cultures. I have focused on three themes: Music and respect, cultural encounters and travelling, and communication.

The aim of this study was to examine how children in ages 3 to 4 use the public library with the research questions: What does children?s, in ages between 3 and 4, information behavior look like when they visit a public library in leisure time with a parent? What is the nature of interaction between child and parent, child and the staff of the library, and between child and other visitors? What is the function of the cultural tools in relation to the children?s information behavior? The theoretical frame of reference consisted of Lev Vygotsky?s ?the zone of proximal development? and Roger Säljö?s theory about using cultural tools. To answer the questions I have observed 4 children together with their mothers and siblings at a public library. From the result of the observations I found that every child had their own information behavior. Two of the children only used one kind of cultural tool ? books.

This master?s paper first presents some of the principal theories and concepts developed by the poverty researchers Rowntree, Titmuss, Townsend, Sen and Lister. These theoretical frameworks are then related to two documents from the EU and Sweden concerning combating poverty and social exclusion, bearing on the establishment of the ?Year 2010 against Poverty?. Finally, I discuss the value in practice of these theories and policy documents, as regards reducing poverty in Europe.It has become clear in this investigation that the theories and concepts from earlier research are still relevant to the formulation of contemporary policy programmes, and that earlier research helps us to avoid old traps in fighting poverty.

The purpose of this study was to examine how some social workers in Sweden describe the social work with unaccompanied children. Emphasis was on the role of culture in social work with the unaccompanied children. I wanted to examine how the social workers describe their view on social work with unaccompanied. I also wanted to examine how the social workers describe their view at their own and the unaccompanied children?s cultural backgrounds influence on the social work with the unaccompanied.

Sweden is a country based on democracy and equality. As a result, both men and women areencouraged to aspire equal career opportunities.The aim of this study is to explore how social and cultural contexts, as well as gender aspects,affect Swedish Upper Secondary Class pupils when they choose career. The study focuses onstudents who have chosen an ambitious school curriculum.As method, the study uses both qualitative interviews with students and a quantitative survey.The theoretical framework is based on gender theory and on the social and cultural contexttheory of Bourdieu.The result of the study shows that gender and social as well as cultural context affect students?ambitions and career choices..

The Swedish government published their current proposition concerning cultural politics,Tid för kultur in 2009. Due to this proposition, culture is considered a basic human right we all deserve to be provided with. It contained goals and guidelines for how to enable culture to all citizens, to integrate and enrich the state, the county councils? and municipalities? work with diversity and multi culture in their culture-based institutes. However, there seems to be a lack of strategies in the issue of how to provide our nondependent elderly, suffering age related handicaps and diseases, with this proclaimed necessity.In recent years, there has been a lot of research proving the link between human wellbeing and a stimulating environment.

The aim of this study is to analyze the process of an agenda setting and see how a specific issue came to materialize on the security policy agenda. The empirical goal of the study is to see why Sweden chose to participate in the EU-led operation to Chad, and how that process came to be? The analysis is based upon Kingdon's multiple streams theory (2003) where he distinguishes the process into three streams. Central for his theory is the coupling of these streams and the importance of a policy entrepreneur. I complement Kingdon's theory of policy entrepreneurs by taking inspiration from Hinnfors (1995), Gustavsson (1999) and especially Eriksson (2000) and their analysis of policy change and agenda setting.