From being an exotic small religion that has existed at a fading presence in southern Iraq and Iran mandeism has moved to the West and Sweden. As more and more Mandaeans encounter a new culture and a new society in Sweden it affects not only them as individuals but also their religion mandeism. In this essay, I have begun to examine how Mandaeans think about their identity and religion. I have taken my starting point in a broad theoretical discussion of identity, religion and secularisation. Mandeism is a gnostic religion that probably has its roots in today?s Israel / Palestine and sees John the Baptist as the last prophet.

Background: The Swedish fashion industry grows steadily, today it?s populated by many small and medium sized companies. Due to the big clothing chains dominant position small businesses risks to be ousted out of the fashion industry.Smaller companies may find it difficult to reach out to the customer by traditional advertising because their budgets are often smaller. It is therefore important for smaller companies to create loyal customers. If the smaller sized businesses in the fashion industry do not follow the rapid developments in society and focus on building strong brands and relationships, they will have problems with surviving in the long run.Problem definition: Which communicative factors are important in the choice of brand strategy to create a long-term survival for small and medium-sized companies in the fashion industry?Purpose: The purpose of the essay is to analyse and evaluate the brand as a communications tool for building a brand image.Method: The data which is being used in the essay is collected from interviews with companies and survey of each company's existing and potential customers.Theoretical perspective: Relationship Marketing Perspective and Transaction Marketing PerspectiveTheories: Brand Strategies, Total Communication, Brand Equity, Involvement Theory, Service Value Profit Chain.Empiric: The empirical data is primary data gathered from interviews with a representative for each company and from the questionnaires distributed to the customers of each company.Analysis: The analysis is an interpretation of the empirical material collected from interviews with each company and customers survey.

The purpose of this thesis is to present and analyze population developments within Umeå municipality during the period 1992 to 2012. The study also aims to discuss growth trends presented in previous papers to seek common factors and get a deeper understanding.Data for 1992, 2002 and 2012 on a sub area level supplied by Umeå municipality was used. The study shows a continued positive development across almost all sub areas, but a differing growth rate from centre to periphery, and also a diversified medium age among the inhabitants.While the city center continues to have the highest growth of population during the studied years, a recent trend seems to point to a growing popularity to settle in the outskirts of the municipality, primarily near the coast..

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of how medium-sized construction companies adapt and how they choose to reorganize their operations in relation to the recession. The study has as its theoretical starting point theories about organizational learning, the impact of the economy on construction companies and strategies for dealing with recessions. The method used to conduct the study was semi-structured interviews with representatives from 15 different construction companies. The results of the study show that they used several strategies to adapt and reorganize the business in accordance with the recession. Some construction companies had to make cost savings as a result of the recession.

Vilken roll har den kulturella globaliseringen på visuell design i tidningsbranschen? Medier är i konstant rörelse och världen har blivit ett öppet kulturellt utrymme där olika kulturer kan förmedlas via medier. Företag globaliserar sin verksamhet vilket gör att kulturella produkter som Coca-Cola och Nike är välkända runt om i världen. Samtidigt diskuteras de konsekvenser som globaliseringen av kulturella produkter kan ha på världen och om detta leder till homogenisering eller hybridisering av kultur.Kvinnomagasinet Cosmopolitan är ett globalt varumärke som existerar i över 100 länder. Den fråga som uppstår är om en stark kulturell produkt som Cosmopolitan har satt en standard för andra kvinnomagasins estetiska uttryck i andra länder.

Abstract Title: We are equal. A study of cultural differences and professionalism in international projects.Level: Thesis for Master Degree in Business Administration.Author: Zahra AhmadiSupervisor: Lars EkstrandDate: 2012-05The purpose of my study is to analyze and examine it well-educated people can reduce the cultural differences in interaction with other actors around the world. Part of aims study surveys and analyzes to understand how educated people can communicate and facilitate communication in order to achieve the goals and motivation in international collaboration. Problems can arise from cultural differences in connection with that persons face in society and in international collaboration. In this study, I assume theoretical framework that exists in cultural and communication theme and professionalism to find common objectives within educated groups.Method: The purpose of this study, I have chosen to use a qualitative approach.

Denna uppsats har haft som syfte att undersöka två olika författarverk rörande TV som medium, dess utformning och påverkan på kultur. De verk jag valt att analysera är Om Televisionen av Pierre Bourdieu och TV: Teknik och kulturell form av Raymond Williams. Tanken har även varit att jämföra dessa två verk för att se vad de har gemensamt och vilka skillnader man kan utläsa av dem. För att man skall få en uppfattning om vilka Pierre Bourdieu och Raymond Williams är har jag även valt att skriva övergripande om dem och deras ideer/teorier i allmänhet. Jag analyserar deras teorier och ideér om TV inom olika områden som de framför i respektive verk samt vilket budskap dessa förmedlar..

The conversion in the Viking Age and the High Middle Agea in Scandinavia and how this affected women is discussed. Did women get a better life when the people had converted to Christianity or not. Our written sources are later than the conversion to Christianity. Instead the material culture, graves, grave goods and runic stones, can help us understand the life of women. Nordic mythology presents a contrast between faith in the Viking Age and Christianity..

AbstractThe Swedish society has always been monolingual, but has for the past decades transformed into a multicultural and multilingual society. The aim of this study is to investigate if and in that case how preschool teachers work with language development in bilingual and multicultural preschools. The concept of linguistic and cultural diversity includes several different components, not least the social interactions that are of great importance to every individual's development, learning and participation in the world. By understanding the importance of language, language development and the role of mother tongue in second language acquisition, we look into various researches done concerning the effects of the preschool teachers? opinions, methods used to language developmental primarily for children who are multilingual and how the physical environment is shaped to promote language in multicultural and multilingual preschools.The method used in this study is semi-structured interviews with preschool teacher working in multicultural or bilingual preschool settings.

This essay examines how witches are portrayed in American produced TV-series in the year 2000 and forward, what elements could have effected that portrayal in the series and also how this portrayal differs itself from witches within Wicca. The material used for this examination are the TV-series Charmed, The Vampire Diaries and Witches of East End and as comparing literature; Living Wicca, The Spiral Dance and Witchcraft Today. The methods used for this process are discourse analysis and content analysis. I used theories of Pierre Wiktorin about religion and popular culture. I used three themes (Characteristics, Practice and mode of thinking) for the processing of the material and to structure the result.

The situation on the Swedish labour market is different in opportunities whether you are a native Swede or someone who has a foreign background. People with foreign backgrounds tend to have lower wages, higher rate of unemployment and often have temporary employment contracts. There is a conception that the Swedish culture is the standard and other foreign cultures are abnormal and different. The purpose of this study has been to investigate why there is discrimination on the labour market against ethnic minorities and how the Swedish history has contributed to the structural ethnic discrimination that we are struggling with. I have been using the right dogmatic method and a social science perspective as complement in order to answer the purpose.

Trough a literature study based on both philosophic and objective fact this essay is taking off in the meaning of public space. It investigates how the information society and its virtual world are affecting the idea and use of public space in the city. The city and the actual world have developed from the traditional meeting between people while the virtual world is based on flows of information. The information flow has expanded through the Information and Communication Technique (ICT). ICT covers among others Internet, mobile phones and computers.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the ways in which the constructions of heterosexuality and gender in three Disney movies about princesses affect the power relations between men and women in the movies, and how discourses on gender and heterosexuality have changed over time. Research questions were:How do characters in the movies talk about gender and heterosexuality?How does the interplay between gender and heterosexuality affect the power relations between men and women in the movies?What are the likenesses and differences between movies from different time periods?Discourses were mapped out using a model based on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe?s political theories. These discourses were then analyzed with a theoretical framework consisting of Yvonne Hirdman?s concept of gender system and gender contracts, Judith Butler?s view on the heterosexual matrix and an understanding of power relations based on Michel Foucault.

In the light of the problems the media industry are struggling with, local news reporting is only one of the challenges the news organizations are facing. When local editors is being moved to the cities the tie with the local community is being severed.The aim of this study has been to analyze how the inhabitants of Vilhelmina municipality talks about their experiences of local journalism. With methodological inspiration from the Critical discourse analysis (CDA) this study examined the discourses of local journalism, social media, journalism's role and municipal policy. The theorectical framework consisted theories of media and democracy, convergence culture and discourse theory.The survey was conducted with four focus groups interviews. The focus groups were divided in different cathegories based on the participants experiences, ages and employment.

The aim of our study is to explore which norms that exists in the home care service, who is sending those norms, how are they maintained and how do they affect the interactions between staff and manager? We want to deep en our knowledge about home care service as an organization and increase our understanding for the psychosocial work environment and also the importance of leadership. We mean to read the organizational culture that exists which allows us to deal with the values that influence the behavior in the organization.The study is based on a qualitative method. The data consists of two focus group interviews, one with managers from the home care service - organization and one with staff from the same organization. T he interview with the managers consisted of five participants and the corresponding figure for the second interview with the staff was eight participants.The theoretical viewpoints have been communication - theory, organizational theory and Foucault´s th eory of power.Our result indicate that norms are something that unconsciously controls us and that we have learned that there are consequences when you step out of what is normative for the group.