The aim of the study was to examine the impact of the use ofTalking Mats in group conversations with preschool children. Two preschoolteachers and eight preschool children, aged 4-5, took part in one of twoconversational groups with one teacher and four children in each group. Thegroups were video-taped during four group conversations on two topics, withand without the use of Talking Mats. The amount of time for each child inthe conversation was calculated, the child?s communicative contributionswere coded and thereafter the extent to which their views were noticed wasanalyzed.

 The aim of this essay was to examine the way preschool teachers and children converse during school meals, and also the way preschool teachers start and develop conversations during meals. The conversations were analyzed from the topic of conversation and the teachers' ways of using language acts such as questions, remarks, exhortations. The study was based on observations, tape recording and contact schedule. The result shows that the topic of conversation is significant for how involved teachers are in conversations during meals. The result also shows how conversations develop or end depending on what language acts teachers use.

After the appointment of a new European Commission in 2004, ?communication? was made a top priority on the agenda. The Commission presented a new communication policy, which would establish a dialogue with the citizens, thereby bringing more democracy to the union and bridging the gap to the citizens. Three documents containing the policy were published, namely an internal action plan for the Commission, Plan D which establishes the framework for national debates and a whitepaper on EU communication policy. These documents were met by mistrust and criticism from many different actors such as journalists and experts.The aim of this master thesis is to examine this new communication policy from a deliberative democratic perspective.

The title of the paper aims at a comment by one of the students during an interview. It reflects how most of the students experience the lunches in a specific school where the investigation is made. The question of pedagogical lunches has always interested me. Here I have used a method called the Grounded theory. I carried out a qualitative investigation with a number of methods such as interviews and participating observations.

Since studies points out declining interest in science among students in Swedish schools, I have in this paper chosen to examine how some students at the Social Science Programme are experiencing the lessons in Natural Science and how to make lessons more interesting according to these students.The purpose of this study was to gain a greater understanding of how teachers would develop new perspectives and tools to make lessons in Natural Science more interesting. I also wanted to investigate whether an intercultural perspective could be a possible tool to increase students? interest and motivation.As a theoretical framework, I have assumed Vygotskij's sociocultural perspective, Habermas's theory of Deliberative conversations and an intercultural perspective. Through a qualitative approach, I conducted interviews with students and teachers. The main results showed that students felt that natural Science lessons were too theoretical and undemocratic and that they wanted to have more student interactions, such as discussions and group works.

Preschool is a place that is continually undergoing change at a rapid pace and developing the skills of our educators is essential for their ability to keep up with these changes. Guidance conversations can be used as a vital tool for the educators competence development.The purpose of this essay is to investigate how educators, special educators and preschool principals think and reason about the use of guidance conversations in preschool.A qualitative method has been used in the shape of interviews with educators, special educators and preschool principals working within different districts of a medium sized city in the south of Sweden.These interviews revealed that the use of guidance conversations is often controlled by specific needs and is used when a problem arises amongst the children. There are many expectations on the special educators role in these conversations, one of which is the role of conversation leader with the purpose of guiding the conversation amongst involved parties and give them the tools they need to resolve problems by themselves instead of delivering packaged solutions..

This Bachelor ?s thesis is about the conversations and meetings that take place in the mobile library. The research questions will try to answer: What do the staff talk about with each other, what conversations do the staff engage in with their users and what do the users talk about amongst themselves? The thesis main question is trying to answer of what is characteristic for the mobile library ?s conversations and meetings. Is the mobile library as a meetingplace any different in comparison with the city library? Focus lies on the eveningtours of the mobile library and excludes those tours that service schools and learning-centers.

The purpose of the study is to explore how social media can be used as a forum to discuss politics and also how young people use critical reflection to evaluate the information available on social media. To achieve the purpose, a qualitative research is used. The empirical data is collected through semi-structured interviews with six high school students who voted in the Swedish parliamentary elections in/of 2014. The empirical data were then analyzed based on previous research on social media, and the school's mission to foster individuals who think critically. The analysis is also based on the theory of deliberative democracy model.

In this thesis we investigate the level of deliberative democracy in the current implementation of the 24/7 Agency in the local government. We are interested in how the combination of the two seemingly opposing ideals of Demokratiutredningen and the 24/7 Agency is solved. Our analysis is based on interviews with civil servants from three kommuner in Skåne and a schematic overview of their websites. As a theoretical framework we use New Public Management Theory, Deliberative Democracy Theory, and Citizen Theory.We have found that the local 24/7 Agency is initiated and implemented by public servants. Their experiences and worldview is mirrored in both process and result.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the construction of consensus in commune-collaborations. By a review of written material combined with elite interviews we have been able to follow the decision-making and the forming of consensus, in a commune-collaboration called NOSAM, in which they have decided to use consensus as a decision method. The thesis is based on a case study and we have decided to follow a specific issue that has been discussed for some time.We have created an instrument based on the ideal of deliberative democracy, through which we have been able to examine whether the decision-making in NOSAM can be described as a deliberative process or if consensus is formed by other incentives.The study shows that the decision-making in NOSAM cannot be described as a deliberative process, although there are some elements of deliberation. Consensus is formed in a proposition drawn up by the officials for the commune-representatives to agree on. Afterwards, the decision has to be brought up in each commune before reaching a final decision in NOSAM.Our opinion is that having consensus as the decision method leads to difficulties when deciding on bigger issues..

In today?s school in Sweden the assignment of community encompasses mediated values and education of democracy as well of single subject matters. What does it mean then, that teachers have a certain kind of idea of democracy, and what implications may biology have for the assignment of community? In upper secondary school there are quite many courses in biology with a national curriculum, and findings show that students of teaching perceive or think of biology as helping to promote the dual-purpose of teaching. In this study, the author of the paper has interviewed four future teachers of upper secondary school with biology as one of their main subjects.

This thesis uses the ?What's the problem?-approach developed by Carol LeeBacchi. This approach studies how the problem that a certain policy is supposedto take care of is represented. Each representation will rest upon certainassumptions and will accordingly support certain solutions while other solutionswill be considered less suitable to the problem as it is represented.The thesis therefore evaluates the competing problem representations forgender mainstreaming in Sweden. The theory chapter explores two developmentpossibilities for gender mainstreaming, based on diversity and deliberativedemocracy.

AbstractTitle: A democratic organisation - one click away? A quantitative content analysis which studies the potential of democratic communication through intranet use.Authors: Stina Gabrielsson and Jill Johansson VennelinPurpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there is potential for democratic communication within the NGOs through intranet use.Key questions to be answered were: To what extent is authority versus members represented on the intranet Klick?s discussion forum? What/which communication-related functions out of social function, knowledge transferring and debate are featured in the posts published on the intranet Klick?s discussion forum? Are deliberative discussions being practiced in the discussion forumthreads on the intranet Klick? The thesis is based on the theory of deliberative democracy. In order to substantiate the theory has theoretical perspectives concerning participation and involvement also been applied. These perspectives are derived from organizational theory and internal communication.Method/Material: This study consists of a quantitative content analysis of the 477 posts and the 129 discussion threads available on the NGO RFSU?s intranet Klick the 29th of november 2012.Main results: The results show that 63, 4 percent of those who were active in the discussionforum represented the category authority, while the category members were formed by 36, 6 percent.

Our study aimed at gaining insight of co-workers experiences of different factors that affects the verbal communication and leads to dialogue and misunderstanding between co-workers and their managers. The empirical material was gained from semi-structured interviews with co-workers at various departments within the same organization. We used a hermeneutic interpretive approach and our data was analyzed concerning different factors affecting communication. The result has been interpreted using the theories of Deliberative conversations and dialogue competence. We have also used Illeris theory of learning.

This thesis has the purpose of developing a normative theoretical framework based on different political philosophers and scientists view on deliberative democratic theory, discourse ethics and a modified norm of citizenship. This framework is supposed to contain the ideal communicative situation for people seeking asylum. Hence, the thesis argues that political influence is best practised through communicative rights, and that people seeking asylum are in title to such rights. We conclude that the standards needed to be met in order to reach the ideal are: translators, translated information, arenas for- or channels of communication, language education, and deliberative education. Once the framework is established we focus our interest on the Swedish state.