My aim is to find out about teachers? perceptions of methods concerning learning and assessment of oral proficiencies. My questions are: What perceptions are there among teachers concerning assessment of oral proficiencies? How do teachers describe their ways of promoting and assessing oral proficiency? In order to answer my questions and obtain data I have accomplished two focus groups interviews with seven language teachers. The result shows that teachers are concerned with several factors regarding assessment of oral proficiency.

This essay examines the process of fair value accounting of financial assets in a Swedish commercial bank, in contrast to the theoretical approach stated by IASB. The theoretical background contains a review of the academic standpoint on fair value accounting and historical cost accounting, a detailed description of fair value accounting according to current and future IASB regulation and on the American FAS 157 regulation. The empirical case study describes the process of valuing and classifying financial assets into level 1 and level 2 of the fair value hierarchy. The analysis describes how the legal requirements for classification are interpreted and applied in practice when valuing bonds and derivatives. The authors provide an explanation as to why the majority of financial assets are valued mark to model rather than mark to market as well as a suggestion on how the share of market valued assets can be increased..

???This research traces the trajectory of those methods of teaching grammar that five different teachers in Swedish from Stockholm municipality use in their practice. ?Their both constructive and negative attitudes towards grammar were in fokus when looking after the connection between their own experience of learning/teaching native language grammar and the methods that they are actually using in their own classes. I was trying to gain knowledge and achieve the purpose of this research by means of a qualitativ method.

An ethnographic study loosely informed by the theoretical framework of distributed cognition was carried out in order to describe how mariners have adopted the Automatic Identification System (AIS) in their work practice, or"made the technology their own". AIS is a transponder-based identification and communication system that allows ships to automatically identify and track each other. In addition to facilitating the identification and tracking of ships, objectives behind the introduction of AIS are to"simplify informational exchange", and"provide additional information to assist situation awareness". Participant observation and interviews were made at four different ships, as well as at two shore stations. A focus group was also held at a maritime conference.

The study set out to find how artists organize and use their personal collections from a Personal Information Management (PIM) perspective, and how that use affects their practice and their art production. A secondary object of the study was to articulate the ways that personal collections are utilized as tools by creative users.  The empirical data consisted of five qualitative, semi-structured interviews with Swedish and Norwegian sound artists. The constant comparative method was used for analysis, and Activity Theory was used as a theore- tical framework for the study. The study concluded that artists? personal collections, while diverse in content and structure, serve the same functions as tools in creative processes, and that attention to the uses of personal collections highlight needs that could be better met by integrated PIM-functionality.

The aim of this study is to examine how two Kenyan school's approaches gender roles, by what the curriculum says and by how the teachers way of teaching are effecting the creation of gender roles. The aim is further to find out what the Kenyan school settings are, according to gender and equality, and how these are implemented in practice. This was examined through interviews at two local schools in Kenya, with five practicing teachers from grade one through grade six. This work compares the respondents' answers to the research that is related to the topic. Because of lack in the research about Kenya, the research has been based on mostly Swedish investigations.

How the renovation of the vast Swedish existing building stock with renovation needs will be performed is considered as decisive in order to achieve the target set by the Swedish government of reducing the energy use by 20 percent by 2020. Consequently, the challenge of the building sector consists in reducing the energy use in the existing building stock but at the same time ensuring that the indoor environmental quality is improved and the cultural values are maintained.So far, there have been a few renovation projects which strongly have reduced the energy use and at the same time have taken into account the environmental aspects and the cultural values. The main reasons are that there have been few incentives and a lack of routines in order to steer efficiently a ?sustainable renovation?.The participants in a Nordic project on sustainable renovation thought that it would be a strong advantage to link the concept of sustainable renovation to the Miljöbyggnad certification system. Indeed it is trusted by the Swedish building and construction sectors and can provide sustainability targets in order to steer renovation processes.The objective of the master thesis is to show how the Miljöbyggnad certification system could be integrated in practice in the renovation process of Riksbyggen, an organization which administers housing associations (Bostadsrättsföreningar) and build houses.

The purpose of the study was to examine how teachers and children interpreted the project and understood its values. To this end, it was necessary to focus on four defining parameters which affect the investigation: structure of pre-school project work, content and delivery, the methods used by teachers during the project, which pedagogical documentation was used (and how), and how the project determined the approach, the curriculum goals and values. Using a qualitative approach, regular unsystematic observations were made over five days, during which three teachers, two pedagogues, two pre-school teachers, and one nanny from the same kindergarten were interviewed regarding children in three age groups: 1-2 years old, 3 years old, and 4-5 years old. The results of my investigation showed that the teachers were divided on how to apply the project as a working method. Children's active role in the pre-school project varied depending on the extent to which teachers adopted children perspective in everyday practice.

The purpose of this discourse-analytical study is to investigate teachers? beliefs about writ-ing and writing instruction and how their beliefs and writing instruction can be understood in relation to the Lgr11 syllabus in Swedish. The study included five teachers who teach in grade 6 of primary school, where I applied Roz Ivani??s theories of written discourses, based partly on interviews with teachers and classroom observations of teaching, partly on the Swedish curriculum for grades 4?6. The result shows that teachers move within creativi-ty, process, genre and social practice discourse, while the skills of discourse and the socio-political discourse lack matching.

The aim of this essay is to explore the lived citizenship and its ideal. First, the form and expression of citizenship practice and ideal is explored through a qualitative interwiev study of ten citizens in the southern suburbs of Stockholm. The perception and expectations of the nature of citizenship, presented by the informants, is then compared to their citizen ideal, as well as to the ideal presented and promoted by the Swedish government. The point of departure is theory of democracy. The essay calls attention to an observed lack of empirical studies in the field of deliberative theory of democracy as well as studies that more broadly bring the theory down to empirical earth.

What drove me to write this paper is the will to  examine if there is a philosophically and scientifically viable  alternative foundation for an objective morality other than what we like to refer to as "God". The  American philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris presents in his book The Moral Landscape a thesis for an objective morality based on science in which he states that  science can determine human values. The purpose of this paper is to perform a theoretical trial of The Moral Landscape, examining Harris' thesis and it's relations to the philosophical obstacles that stands in its way, these being mainly the famous philosophical principle "Hume's Law" and G.E. Moore's "Naturalistic Fallacy and Open Question Argument" and thus will serve as my main theoretical foundation. The results of my study was not conclusive since Harris in fact doesn't succeed in bridging the gap between facts and values on a scientific ground.

This Master thesis aims to illuminate nine librarians relation to professional information. This is accomplished by focusing on five questions: How do they communicate and acquire professional information, and how do they evaluate its relevance? What are their experiences of continuing professional education? What are their opinions on the academicalisation of the education? Is it possible to perceive something of the librarians professional project in the informants statements? What is their relation to the academic subject of library and information science and the research on the area? The analysis is based upon the interviews with nine librarians and carried out with profession theory in order to study the role of theoretic knowledge in our participants professionalisation processes. We also use different context oriented theories to study the contextual dimension of information need and seeking. The conclusions of this Master thesis reveal that the communication between the theory of library and information science and the practice need to be improved if we want to see more of an evidence-based librarianship.

This study discusses the European Union´s influence regarding the Cyprus Conflict since 1998, when the EU began the official membership negotioations with Cyprus. The first aim of the study is to investigate in what way the EU has tried to practice influence concerning the Greek- and Turk Cypriots, but also Turkey, since Turkey is seen as a relevant party in the conflict. The second aim of the study is to examine what effects the EU´s influence has led to for the parties involved. The theoretical approach in the study is the theory Normative power, the theory stresses that Europe and the EU practices non-military power, and is able to do so because of the fact that the EU is based on internationally acknowledged desirable norms, as democracy and human rights and liberties. The result of the study shows that the EU has been an active participant concerning the Cyprus Conflict by successfully influencing the Greek- Cypriot government and Turkey e.g.

 This essay is about how the educators can use the play as a tool to develop childrens social skills with eachother. The work is based on a qualitative study using a survey, where the educators can tell how they work within the play. I chose to use five different participants in my essay. All of them work in the same preschool, south of Stockholm.In this essay I have two questions. These two are:What do the educators tell about the importance of play for children's interaction?How do the educators tell how they work with the play to develop the children?s social interaction?Previous research shows that play gives the children opportunity to develop socially, emotionally, intellectually and physically.

We want in this paper, by using participant observation and qualitative interviews, comecloser to an understanding of what meaning a language café might have for the peoplewho go there. Many of the visitors are people who recently moved to Sweden and are inthe middle of a process of learning Swedish. We want to get a further insight into howthey feel about their situation and what the social encounters on the language café mightmean to them. The purpose is to examine how this can have significance for the identitydevelopment of the visitors.The result shows that the language café is an important place for the visitors because itis the only place they can go to in order to practice speaking Swedish, which isimportant for them to find their place in Sweden. The language café also fulfils animportant function of a place where the visitors can receive an understanding of theSwedish society and reflect about it, but also a place for self-reflection to see theopportunities in the situations they find themselves in.