The aim of this study is to examine some teachers and assistants? perception of conditions for students? democratic participation in the compulsory school for learning disabilities specialization training school. In order to deepen and more clearly describe the purpose of the study, three issues have been selected. Firstly, how do teachers and assistants perceive the concept of participation? Secondly, how do teachers and assistants perceive students opportunities for participation in teaching? And finally, do teachers and assistants perceive students? opportunities for participation in democratic activities of school? It is a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews.

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.

Title: Similarities or differences within the centre-right? A study of the potential for party fusions within in the Swedish centre-rightAuthor: Charlie WeimersAim: The thesis seeks to find the potential for party fusions within the Swedish centre-right by analyzing the ideological similarities and differences between the parties.Method/Material: In the thesis, four dimensions of the parties? ideologies are analyzed: view of man, theory for societal structures, fiscal theory and moral values. The results of the study of the ideologies are then compared. The investigation is done with the party manifestos as starting point and with the analysis of ideas as theoretical tool.Main Results: The comparative analysis, based on the parties? ideological views, shows specific party constellations are more probable than others.

This essay focuses on the implementation of the strategy gender mainstreaming in the European Union and the member states. It starts to identify problems connected to the implementation process and recognizes significant prerequisites for an efficient implementation of the strategy. The main problems and prerequisites are: political will, governance and structure and knowledge about gender equality. The empirical material consists of reports from the EU that touches upon gender mainstreaming and gender equality. The problems and prerequisites will be analysed in relation to the governance perspectives top-down and bottom-up and expert bureaucratic and participative democratic and gender and feminism.

The primary purpose of this thesis is to study how political agents construct and give meaning to the concepts of democracy, representative democracy and referendums. The starting point of the thesis is the pressing issue whether or not Sweden should hold a referendum on the new EU constitution. To analyze this question my choice of method is critical discourse analysis and the topical theories revolve around democracy and responsibility.My study shows that there are three different discourses in this debate: ?the democratic process?, ?the representative democracy? and ?the concept of democracy?. However, the meaning of the concepts in these discourses varies depending on which side the political agents are on.

This thesis is a product of research about how implementation issues occur due to the relationbetween bureaucrats and politicians. Our study treats the democratic dilemma that occurs whenschools are to implement environmental certifications. Through a comparative study we comparetwo schools in Norra Hisingen, a district in Gothenburg municipal where one of the schools iscertificated and one is not. By using theories from top down and bottom up approaches toimplementation we develop key factors that will lead us to answer our research questions.Through text analysis of policy documents and through interviews with bureaucrats we analyzewhat may be the causes for only one of the two schools to be certificated though Gothenburgmunicipal wish all schools to be. Through our analytical tool we can establish that the policydocuments are well formed according to our top down-theory and that these documents does nothave a major impact on the fact that one school is certificated and one is not.

The purpose of this essay is to examine wage-earners' investment funds from the ideological point of view. Were they in any way an integrated part of social democratical democratic socialism and reformism? I emphasize Olof Palme´s ideological idea of democratic socialism and reformism, and how he handled the issue. How did the question of these funds correspondent with the basic ideological points of view, and what was the standpoint of Palme in this issue.My method is built upon a deep study and analyses of SAP board of party and the standing committees protocol in the light of Olof Palme´s and SAP's ideology. I even use information from literature, inquiries and dissertations.

Through qualitative interviews with six teachers at a school an understanding of teachers´ conceptions of, and conditions for their work on pupil democracy and student participation are sought.Formulation of questions were as follow:What does pupil democracy and pupil influence mean for selected teachers?How do selected teachers´ work with pupil democracy and pupil influence?What opportunities and complicatedness?s do selected teachers see with this work?Through this the selected teachers views on children and their thoughts on their role as a leader also are investigated.According to the curriculum the Swedish school should aim to transmit primary democratic values and pursue the education through democratic work models. Further the pupil should acquire influence of their education. The theory exposes several approaches on democracy and influence. These approaches are further on applied on the school.The result of the study evinces that selected teachers´ practice both pupil democracy and pupil influence.

The study aims to investigate student participation as a tool for democratic development in secondary school from a student perspective. Furthermore, students' perceptions of the school's work with student participation in formal and informal contexts are also investigated, with basis in the teaching structure. The results are based on interviews conducted with students who all attend the same class in their last year of high school. Subsequently, an analysis is made based mainly on three different theories: democracy, curricula and sociocultural theory. The result shows that students feel that they are able to practice student participation but the amount of influence they get differs between individuals depending on devotion and commitment.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka om Feldenkrais-metoden kan vara till hjälp i sångutövande, och hur man kan använda Feldenkrais-metoden i sångundervisning. Jag har valt att använda mig av en kvalitativ undersökning där jag utgått från litteratur, en intervju samt deltagande observation ur ett emiskt/etiskt perspektiv. Som sångare eller utövare av något musikaliskt instrument är det av stor vikt att man är medveten om, och tar hand om sin kropp, för att kunna prestera på topp och hålla i längden. Feldenkrais metoden kan i detta fall fungera som en nyckel till att finna lätthet i rörelse och andning. Man bör dock belysa att det finns många andra metoder att nå kroppsligt välbefinnande på, och att det är upp till individen att känna vad som passar bäst.The aim of this thesis is to examine if the Feldenkrais- method can be of help in singing practise, and how you can use the method in voice teaching.

Tankarna som har lett till den här uppsatsen är sprungna ur många långa och sena datorspelsessioner över internet. Man kunde ana att personer pratade olika beroende på om de var tvungna att trycka ner en knapp (Push-To-Talk) när de pratade med varandra eller om de bara kunde tala rakt ut (Voice Activation/Activated). För att undersöka frågeställningarna valdes en kvalitativ metod inspirerad av Hutchins tankar på hur kognition bör studeras i dess naturliga kontext (?cognition in the wild") realistisk soldatsimulator och undersökningsdeltagarna rekryterades från ett community som ofta spelar sagda spel. På så sätt eftersträvades det att studien genomfördes i sin ?vilda? kontext där röstchattandet blir en kombination av uppstyrt problemlösande och socialt småprat.

The purpose of the thesis is to examine the relation between art, politics and ideology in contemporary art, focusing on the drawings depicting Mohammed the prophet as a dog, made by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks. His work is contextual in accordance with current art practice, thus letting everything related to the artwork become part of it, a circumstance the thesis tries to grasp in the widest respect possible. The drawings were published and spread throughout Swedish media, where they were later defended and criticized by a number of writers. Many debaters argued that the art work represents Western freedom of speech, and that to criticize them is to criticize fundamental democratic rights. This discourse tended to disqualify all arguments that questioned why such force was put into defending and spreading offensive pictures.

The aim of this study has been to, through a couple of chosen theories, examine in what way and for what purposes Japan has used its international aid system, How can the nation have been said to have implemented and acted in lines with the philosophies and principles set forth in the ODA declaration. What approaches, concerning positive and negative aid sanctions in the matters of aid to Cambodia and Burma, have been chosen and what have the motives for these choices been. What have been the determining factors of the outcome related to these sanctions - economic, political and/or matters of identity? I have found that a concern for possible decrease in economic profit and investment related areas, combined with a feared loss of political prestige and worsened diplomatic relations to the neighbouring countries in the Asian society, have come to overtrump the notion of advocating democracy, human rights, environmental and anti-militaristic issues..

This is a study of how democracy is affected by regionalization. The study focuses on values related to the democracy; these values are representative, transparency, participation, anchoring of decisions and accountability. The case study for this essay is the Regional Development Council of Värmland case study of Region Värmland.1997 a proposition was put forward the Swedish government about changes in responsibilities regarding four Swedish counties. It was decided that Kalmar, Gotland, Skåne and Västra Götaland County would be part of pilot project with extended regional autonomy.Region Värmland was formed at 2001 as a Region Development Council and was at 2007 transformed to a co-cooperative body. Region Värmland has an indirectly elected council, i.e.

This thesis intends to analyse conditions for a successful implementation of consociational democracy, as a democratic model in Afghanistan. The lack of critical reviews regarding the democratisation-process in Afghanistan initiated the purpose of this study.Lijpharts democracy model was used as the basis in the comparative study. Along with empirical evidence regarding how the complex process of democracy in Afghanistan is progressing, the study investigated whether the identified conditions occurred or not.The choice of which democracy model to use can be crucial for the democratic possibilities to even survive and become established in conflict-affected communities. The principle of consociational democracy is that it is an empirically based normative model that aims to organise the state in a way that works against the risks of majority domination and oppression against the minority.The empirical case study revealed that a majority of the conditions were not met, which then can counteract the possibilities for consociational democracy in Afghanistan. The study has critically examined the prospects for the success of consociational democracy in Afghanistan, and it can be assessed that there is a limited probability for a successful applying of this model..