This thesis is of an historical nature and deals with two institutions in Bosnia and Hercegovina: waqf and the Library of Gazi Husrev bay. These institutions are placed in a societal context which makes it easier to understand their origins, development and decline. The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the history of the Library of Gazi Husrev bay and its specific characteristics as well as analyze the institution of waqf in a societal context. The questions posed by this thesis are: What is waqf and its meaning? What are its benevolent as well as hostile periods? How did the Library of Gazi Husrev bay and its mission develop? The thesis is limited to waqf in its societal context.

This Master Thesis aims to study and discuss the occurence of three concepts in some influential cultural policy documents which includes the UNESCO public library manifesto, the Swedish libraries act, the Swedish cultural policy objectives, and a study from the mid nineties which deals with the cultural policy. The questions asked are: -Do the documents mention democracy? In what way? -Do the documents mention the public sphere? In what way? -Do the documents mention information? In what way? -How can we understand the content of the documents through relevant theories about democracy, the public sphere and information? Theories about the information society are used, as well as theories from Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Schiller and Robert Dahl. The way of method is document studies and abduktion, with influences from hermeneutic theory. The analysis deals with the documents through these concepts: democracy, the public sphere and information and puts forward the content, or lack of content, about democracy in the analysed material.

The absence of female directors on Swedish corporate boards is currently a hot topic for both politicians and business leaders all over the world. This thesis aims to discuss reasons for the scarcity of women on boards in Swedish publicly listed companies as well as what actions are taken to alter the composition of these boards. A rigorous selection of gender theories have been used together with data collected from in-depth interviews with mainly board members and nomination committees. Extensive analysis has led to findings that historical perceptions of differences between men and women linger as of today, which prevents women to reach top executive levels as well as board positions. The increasing use of headhunters has encouraged companies to look beyond male-dominated networks in an attempt to widen the range of potential board nominees.

The purpose has been to, by the means of literature studies and conversation, give landscape architects, teachers or other interested people an increased understanding of school gardens as a phenomenon. One episode in the essay describes school garden?s historical background and how its ideology has changed as the society has developed. A conversation with a spokesperson for Södermalmsskolan in Stockholm, depict how a communal public school handles the management of a school garden today. I have also wanted to present the conditions that society and the schools organisation has put on the management of the garden on this particular school. In the year of 2007 Södermalmsskolan got the opportunity to found its school garden thanks to the environmental campaigns that were realized by the city of Stockholm.

It is a qualitative study that describes and analyzes how professionals deal with social issues of inclusiveness and ethics in the investigation of cases involving interventions for adolescents. The focus is on the strategies that staff in social services expressed in terms of obstacles and opportunities for working participatively and especially when it comes to dealing with ethical dilemmas that may arise.    The method used was qualitative research interviews. Five social workers from two different municipalities were interviewed and the material is analyzed on the basis of socio-cultural theory and organizational theory. Themes that emerged were participation, ethics, discretion and flexibility, collaboration, organization, skills and time. The main obstacles that have emerged in the study are that those who work in social services have had been difficulties to fully create participation due to various factors.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vilken innebörd begreppet ?kulturkompetens? ges i litteraturen samt utifrån detta problematisera dess applicering på praktiken. Begreppet ?kulturkompetens? saknar en enhetlig definition, något som initierat skrivandet av denna uppsats. Studien bygger på en litteraturstudie i form av en kvalitativ textanalys.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether the teacher's background affect students' approach to mathematics teaching. Characteristically, in Sweden today is that mathematics is perceived as difficult subject and that the number of foreign teachers has increased. The study examines a phenomenon which the relationship between the teacher's language accent and substance difficulties.The method used for data collection is questionnaires, in order to investigate the phenomenon as the relationship between the teacher's accent and substance difficulties.The investigation has been carried out based on the students' point of view, both secondary and primary school pupils. What difficulties have arisen in teaching?  What is the biggest obstacle to achieve the goals of mathematics, to understand the teacher's language accent first in order to understand the subject, or that mathematics is difficult in itself to be understood as a substance.The result clearly shows that the teacher's accent does not affect teaching and students' view of mathematics as a subject.

Recent studies show that manufacturing companies to a larger extent use historical cost accounting in their internal accounts, at the expense of calculated costs. The explanation behind this is claimed to be that firms are subject to careful scrutiny by the stock market. Consequently, top management stresses the need of evaluating all parts of the firm from external accounting. However, lower management levels express a general concern that the incentive to invest in machines will decrease. This master thesis aims to investigate whether or not there is an objective reason behind this concern.

We started out the study with a preconception of culture as something that creates difference between groups of people, which had been verified by our prior research. We also had a sense of culture as a polysemous term. Our assumption is also that there is an opinion within social work practice that Swedish social workers are faced with a cultural barrier when encountering immigrant clients.In this study our aim is to examine constructions of the terms cultural competence and culture. Constructions of the terms ethnicity and ethnic diversity are also observed, although the main reason for this is to show what relation these terms have to the terms cultural competence and culture, and how they may give each other meaning, according to the theory of social construction. In addition to constructions, we also aim to bring out discourses around the terms, upon which we will create a discussion about power and dominance informed by post-colonial theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA).

The aim of this study was to understand how staff at residential homes for unaccompanied children experiences their professional role. The main focus of the study was on how the staff defines their professional role and how they handle the situation to be close and at the same time keep a distance towards the children in care. Five women and two men were interviewed at five different residential homes for unaccompanied children. By symbolic interactionism we are able to see that the professional roles are shaped through interaction with the children in care as well as in relation to colleagues. The main role for the staff is to build up a relationship with the children.

The agricultural sector is currently highly dependent on fossil fuels, with diesel beingmost prominent. There are however both historical and modern alternatives thathave not been subject to enough evaluation to disregard them as suitable alternative.This report aims to theoretically investigate the feasibility of converting aconventional diesel driven tractor to run on electricity, delivered via a cableconnected to either the main power grid or on-site electric production, such asphotovoltaic. Delivering electricity to the machine via a cable is a method withhistorical roots in the early 20th century and in the present day mining industry.The economic and technological potential of the technique are evaluated, along withthe examination of several different motor powers, voltages, losses and constructionideas. The report finds the technique to be both possible as well as long termeconomically and environmentally beneficial. To realise this method however, somedeviations from the present methods of agricultural farming must be made,considering the more advanced driving patterns, the limited mobility and therequirement for extra driver awareness.

The Swedish regions are new phenomena, from the start from the new regionalism which started in the 1980´s. The purpose of the thesis is to analyze Region Skåne and Västra Götalandsregionen to come to a conclusion which model of region they are and want to be by using theories of regional identity and identity of politics and see similarities and differences. My research question is: Which of cultural, administrative and functional region are Region Skåne and Västra Götaland striving to construct?   The methods I have used are qualitative text- and content analysis to analyze the regions, by using theories about regional identity and identity of politics. Furthermore, I am using some statistic from SOM-institutet to analyze the regional identity in the regions.   The result show that Region Skåne is constructing a cultural region, because of their strong regional identity and that the politicians are using identity of politics to combine the citizens.

This report is the result of a case study at Peltor AB during the spring semester of 2007. The task Peltor gave us was to improve the delivery accuracy and to lower the high finical value of delayed orders (backorder), and to divide the products into logical groups. The logical group will be a useful tool to remain a high level of service. If the level of service increases the company will be more competitive.The electronic department at Peltor has problems with delayed orders. According to Peltor, the problem is based on delivery lead time which is presumed.To increase the delivery accuracy, a lead time analysis is made to find the accumulated delivery lead times for each product.

It is in a time of changes when the human being mainly seeks for its identity. In today?s globalized and internationalized society where people meet whom belongs to various religions, talks different languages and are carrying on different values and previous experiences. This has resulted in a multiculturalism and diversity in the "Swedish school". As a teacher and pupil in this school of multiculturalism you are daily faced by individuals that either you define yourself as or in relation to.The purpose of my study is for me to show how pupils with foreign background look on the multicultural school, and also how they create their identity in relation to the diversity offered by the school.

The essay studies the relationship between communication and organizational culture; to determine if there are any cultural differences between the management of an organization and its employees and to examine how a difference can affect the communication of organizational policies. A case study, where the public school was examined, was used to answer the research question, and interviews were held with relevant people on different levels in the organization.The interviews were analyzed with the theoretical frame of reference as a benchmark. Cultural differences could be identified between different levels in the organization and between the two schools studied. The differences affected how and why people communicated but not how well the respondents understood each other.Keywords: Organizational culture, subculture, Organizational communication, affects, hierarchy..