Since 2007 the American sitcom the Big Bang Theory has spread throughout the world. With its twenty million watchers it is one of the most popular sitcoms of our time. The starting point for this essay is that the humourus series with the more or less geeky main characters is more than just entertainment - it is a part of the mediatization of religion. This means that media is affecting the recipients? view on religion in general and the personal religion.

The aim of our Master´s thesis is to investigate the development of the different libraries in the former communities of Flisby and Lofta during the former part of the twentieth century. We ask the following questions:How did the libraries in Flisby and Lofta develop between the years of 1905 and 1952?How can we understand the libraries? dependency of funding of different kinds? We have used case study as a method, and we have adopted a source criticism approach. We have mainly used our local archives and among other things we have investigated various sorts of protocols, annual reports, auditor?s reports and the accounts that were sent to the Board of Education.

In this thesis, the introduction of smoke-free restaurants and bars in several EU Member States in a policy convergence perspective is studied. The thesis sets out to explain whether policy convergence has occurred and the possible explanations connected with it. It is stated that 15 out of 25 EU Member States had introduced or decided to introduce smoke-free restaurants and bars up to April, 2006. Out of all the countries in the world, 35, including the EU Member States, had introduced or decided to introduce smoke-free restaurants and bars. The result is analysed by using policy convergence theory and by putting the case in a global environment where tobacco control has become an ever more central theme for public health policy.The EU Member States are different in several ways considered to be important factors for policy convergence, such as cultural, institutional and socio-economic similarities, and the conclusion is made that EU membership has been a most crucial factor for the rapidity of the policy diffusion.

Title: Theory and Practice: A study of Swedish Research on the Internationalization in Swedish Business and its Relevance to Practice´s, according to The Camber of Commers, Swedish Trade Council and researchers.Main issue: Within marketing science, there is an general ongoing discussion about the gap between researchers and practitioners, this leads to the thesis main issue on whether the Swedish marketing research conducted in the internationalization of Swedish companies, is relevant to practitioners and provides essential tools for practitioners to applicable in real business situations.Purpose: The purpose is to answer the problems of theory and practice, what it looks like and what the underlying factors and impact difference between internationalization theory and practice are.Method: The thesis has a qualitative methodology mainly based on theory, as well as empirical findings from researchers and organizations working with Swedish company's internationalization.Results: The result shows that there is a difference between theory and practice and that there are several factors underpinning this. Theories primary purpose is not to be practical but to explore an unanswered need to create an understanding to the researcher?s audience, which is other researchers, thereby are theories based on knowledge not demands from the practitioners. The result also shows that the internationalization theories can be applied in practice´s reality on the internationalization of companies. Research degree of generality has a sense of reality given by the empirical studies which therefore reflects the reality of the theory which gives theory a content of truth.Conclusion: The gap that exists between theory and practice has both positive and negative effects.

How effective is consumer power? Can consumers regulate corporate behavior?And if so is the case, could the mechanisms where consumers regulate corporatebehavior have any democratic value to contribute with? These are the questionsthat this master's thesis comprehends with. The purpose of this writing is toconstruct a theory of consumer power that is compatible with democratic theory,this in order to contribute to the ongoing discussion within the discipline ofpolitical science about the third democratic transformation. A discussion that hasbeen actualized due to the democratic deficit created by the growing corporatepower and the shift of power from state to private enterprises. Besides showingfor a parallel between the democratic mechanisms that exists in the relationbetween citizens and state on the one hand, and the consumers and corporationson the other hand, this paper argues that consumers do have a great potential inregulating corporate behavior towards a higher social responsibility andawareness.

[Saknas].

The role of religion, of religious individuals and organizations, is currently discussed within both a private and public sector of development. I have viewed documents from the World Bank and DFID where the religious presence is a growing fact and previous theories that religion would disappear with economic development have been abandoned. As a result DFID conducted a large study on the importance of religion for development work, RaD 2005-2011, under the directions of Professor Carole Rakodi. Rakodi (2011) concluded that religion was highly related to the success or failure of developmental projects, and to understand the values people had religion needed to be understood within its specific cultural context. She developed an analysis model to conduct this work.

The goal with this thesis was to look at various aspects of how teachers and students perceived the use of various texts in the collective teaching context in which they are participants. The purpose with that was to provide insight into aspects of the didactic processes that the texts and the usage of them are part of and demonstrate aspects of both the conditions and the opportunities for teaching conducted within the surveyed education. The essay analysis is based on interviews with four teachers and twelve students in a total of four teaching contexts (within subjects: Swedish and SO/Religion) about texts they worked with during a selected period of work.The essay is based on a theory of Kathleen MacCormick and Torlaug Hoel Lökkengaard where reading and writing are described as both an individual cognitive process and a common cultural process, impossible to completely separate from each other. The students description of their use of the texts show how they are influenced by teachers culture of teaching, in turn, influenced by the curriculum. In relation to Wiksten Folkeryd, af Geijerstam and Edling research on students movability in texts in the Swedish school, the survey shows some of the aspects that enable students to develop a higher level of movability in texts within the subject Swedish.

The purpose of this paper was to look into how the individual has been portrayed in the different curriculums for Swedish compulsory school from the 60?s to the 90?s. This was done in order to see what type of discourse ?monocultural- multicultural- or intercultural- the understanding of the individual has led to.The purpose was divided into five questions: Who is the individual in the curriculums? How is the individual portrayed in relation to education in the curriculums? How is the individual portrayed in relation to society in the curriculums? What type of discourse - monocultural- multicultural- or intercultural- is mirrored in the different curriculums? Is it possible to see tendencies in the discourses that lead closer to, or farther away from, an intercultural perspective? The material that was analysed consists of four different curriculums: Lgr 62, Lgr 69, Lgr 80, and Lpo 94.The method used was a discourse analytic approach based on the theory of social constructionism. The answers to the questions asked were structured with the support from definitions of monocultural discourse, multicultural discourse, and intercultural discourse, derived from Pirjo Lahdenperäs (2008) descriptions of different organizational cultures.The main conclusion drawn from this analysis was the fact that the intercultural discourse about the individual has not been obtained.

Clearcutting systems have been the dominating silvicultural approach during the last decades in the Nordic countries. While economically rational, it is also leading to a trivialisation of the flora and fauna, and may result in negative reactions of people in urban settings. As a consequence of this, and a more diversified view on which goods and services forests should deliver, there is an increasing interest in broadening the range of silvicultural methods that are used. The term continuous cover forestry (CCF) represents a suite of methods that have gained increasing interest in the Nordic countries. In CCF a considerable amount of the trees are left after harvest to favour values that require a continuity of tree-covered areas. There are thus hopes that this method will meet the needs for maintaining biodiversity and satisfy social and cultural values.

Purpose of this study is to investigate whether BBIC had an effect on the interaction between social services and schools. To find this out, a comparative study carried out between two municipalities in southern Sweden who has worked with the BBIC system different lengths of time. The empirical data is based on six qualitative interviews with heads of unit in social services, principals in secondary schools, and social workers who work with children- and youth investigations. The theoretical framework consists of Bronfenbrenners Ecology model, systems theory as organizational theory and the theory of autopoiesis, and Danermark model of collaboration. The results of the survey show that respondents do not find that their inter-organizational collaboration has been significantly affected by the implementation of BBIC, but that BBIC provides a good basis for collaboration due to the logic and structure of the system..

The thesis objective was to study the partnership between the municipality of Gothenburg and three nonprofit organizations concerning the mobile EU-citizens. The study examines how the EU-enlargement affected Sweden and eventually the municipality of Gothenburg, and how Gothenburg responded to the new situation regarding the target group. The thesis contains one case study and the empirical data are based on semi structured interviews with politicians and officials from both the public- and the nonprofit sector. The results were screened with New Institutional Theory, Resource Dependence Theory and Decision Making Theory: Rule Following. The theories were used to locate any type of isomorphism, resource dependence and rule following in the partnership.

 The image of the poet Gustaf Fröding is the main theme of this essay. It opens with an analysis of the chamber opera Flickan i ögat. This opera has never been translated but a direct translation would be The Girl in the Eye. It refers to a story that when a man looks into the mirror and sees a picture of a girl in his eye, she will be his future love.  Fröding has written a poem "Flickan i ögat" where the person in the poem only observes himself.

As more and more book publishers are starting up in Sweden, despite of tough competition, this thesis aims to understand the necessary resources required by new publishing houses in order to create a long-term role on the national publishing market. This is a market characterized by a high level of cultural interests, where success is not always measured in economic profit. Four new publishing houses have been chosen, whose start-up phases and entry processes are described in order to determine what factors have been essential in creating a role. In addition, relevant actors such as other publishers, distributors, and retailers have been interviewed with the purpose of acquiring the complete picture of how the new publishers? can create a role within the industry.

Gender politics in Sweden is considered unique because gender policies (jämställdhet) are integrated into national politics and politicised both in the public and the private sphere. The Swedish case is therefore considered a role model by many feminist scholars.This view has been criticised by both post modern feminists and public administration scholars. Critics imply that the increased immigration and more heterogeneous population have led to a new challenge for state institutions. The Swedish model, with its universal welfare solutions, lacks the ability to recognise differences within groups. Universal solutions that treat everyone the same is no longer the most just way to treat people.The growing use of goal orientation in Swedish public administration has increased the civil servants discretion in the implementation process, and thereby the space for differentiated treatment.