Lack of political interest and will to deal with human rights violations carried out under the civil- military dictatorship, has characterized the transition and post-transition in Uruguay. The systematic use of torture, arbitrary imprisonments and forced disappearances in the relatively small country created a culture of fear that has been present through out the post-transition phase. Human rights groups have been central actors in the fight for truth and justice and against impunity. This study analyzes how these groups multiple democracy-building functions have contributed to democratic development. It also analyses how the democracy-building functions have been constrained by the political context.

The Swedish metropolitan politics have had the bottom-up perspective as a major principle to evolve the democratic participation in segregated areas. My objective was to investigate if a bottom-up perspective has been used as a method of evaluation in a sample of 10 evaluation reports made about democratic participation in Malmö.The key questions were; In the evaluations:- How was the bottom-up perspective and related concepts defined?- What criterias and theories were used?- What values surfaced?- What methods were used?- Has a critical approach been used?The method used is analysis using the theories of Critical Social Method by Alvesson & Deetz, Values in evaluation by House & Howe and Choices of perspective by Eliasson.None of the analysed evaluations have used participatorial methods. As participation is defined mainly statistically, the criterias are usually quantitative measurements, though the evaluators agree that democracy is a matter of quality. There is a common lack of theoretical basis of analysis and methodology description.

In the thesis we discuss South African teachers? conceptions of democracy in general and school democracy in particular. The essay is based on interviews with twelve teachers, working in South African high schools. We have asked questions concerning different views of democracy, such as what the term means to the teachers and how they define a democratic school. We take our stand in different theoretical approaches such as school being the ultimate link between a state and its people to make the citizens think and act democratically.

The purpose of the study is to highlight educators' preferences and attitudes towards tablet in preschool by describing the use of this digital tool in the preschool educational activities. The use of tablet in preschool is in the study looked upon as a phenomenon. The description of the phenomenon is built on the analysis and interpretation of educators' statements about it. The research questions focus on the following aspects: educators' attitudes towards the tablet and its use in pre-school educational activities, the tablet's current area of use, the culture surrounding the use of this digital tool and the educators? statements about advantages and disadvantages of tablet's use in preschool.

The purpose of my study is to study Social Democrats immigration policy over the period 1990 and 2013. My material consists of party programs and motions that social democracy has raised in Parliament. As a research method I used McGee´s ideograph theory. I use a cluster analysis inspired by Kenneth Burke to analyze the meaning of those found ideographs. I also present and use Bitzers rhetorical situation in my analyzeWith help of Burke´s rhetorical situation I could see how the Social Democrats' rhetorical approach to immigration policy in the different periods in society.My investigation of the Social Democratic Party program and motions / propositions revealed the following ideographs: Democracy, solidarity, equality and freedom.

The purpose of this graduate work is to seek knowledge about how children?s right to participation and influence is interpreted and understood in a specific context and also to examine how this right can be conditioned and shaped by the pedagogical practice of early childhood education.The focus of this study has been to examine the arguments and attitudes towards the right to participation and influence as a pedagogical practice as it is understood in early childhood education. Additionally, I have been interested in studying the affordances and restrictions that early childhood educators experience when dealing with children´s right to participation and influence.The platform used for data collection is Facebook and the informants recruited were active participants in forums regarding democracy in preschool education. In the second phase of the study I conducted online focus groups with these participants.For the analysis of the material I have adopted a poststructuralist perspective, starting from Jaques Derridas philosophical texts and use of deconstruction.The results show the complexity in early childhood education´s democratic mission. What becomes clear is the importance for the teachers to adopting an open, ethical and democratic approach in order to make children´s right to participation and genuine influence possible in the everyday reality of early childhood education. .

On the 8th of May 2007 a local power-sharing goverment consisting of Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was formed in Northern Ireland. The aim of this dissertation is to explore why the DUP, who in the past have opposed all forms of power-sharing decided to form a goverment and take active part in a power-sharing agreement. The study is based on a consociational theoretical framework developed by Arend Lijphart and further developed in a Northern Irish context by John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary. Using this theory the study seeks to understand the broad conditions surrounding the DUP's power-sharing. After a description of consociational theory and the road leading up to the Belfast Agreement,three possible explanations for power-sharing, based onconsociational theory are discussed.

The aim of the study has been to find out children?s librarians? views on and management of media that contains topics with a controversial nature and also to find out how this affects the public library as a democratic institution. We have conducted the study by interviewing six children?s librarians. By using Vestheim?s terms value rationality and instrumental rationality, we have been categorizing the answers from our informants and thus identified two different points of view.

This master's thesis reports on our investigation of how the public librarian's professional identity is formed and what it is formed of. We have considered factors such as: education, competence and daily tasks. In order to fulfil this aim we have used a literature study on concepts such as competence, education, professional identity and profession. We have also carried out an empirical study where we have interviewed nine librarians on public libraries. The method of analysis is qualitative.

Introduction: In Sweden the definition of ambulance nursing is the examination and treatment of sick or injured people done by ambulance nurses during transport.  This means not only focus on the illness or injury but also the human being treated. The paramedic service must be based on the presumption that the medical needs of the patients are guaranteed, and that the expectations and demands of the public are satisfied. Competence and availability are basic terms for a well-functional paramedic service. There is a lot of pressure put on the people working with pre-hospital nursing. One mistake can lead to serious consequences for the patient.

My purpose with this essay was to study if there was any difference in competence between preschool teachers and child minders at a preschool outside of Stockholm. To determine what the differences consisted of, if there was any. The questions I wanted answered were as follows: Are there any differences in competence between preschool teachers and child minders? Do the two different occupations have different ways at looking at what the children need and their abilities? Do they see that they have different skills depending on what occupation they belong to? What do they believe that the people from the other occupation contribute to the preschool which compliments their own working skills?I used a qualitative method which included interviews and observations to find out the answers to these questions. My results from these interviews and observations indicated that experience, personality and attitudes are very important as well as education.

Researchers in the field of political corruption generally expect voters in democratic states to lose trust in corrupted politicians. However, there are cases where corrupted politicians maintain their popularity, a phenomenon studied in this thesis. Focus lies on three cases of political corruption: the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who has been the subject of several judicial investigations and court cases; the impeached former president of Lithuania, Rolandas Paksas; and the German Christian Democratic Union's (CDU) involvement in a party funding scandal. The cases are chosen based on the method of agreement. Berlusconi, Paksas and CDU have all, in spite of their corrupt behaviour, kept or regained popular support among a large group of their country's citizens.

Syftet med detta arbete har varit att skapa klarhet kring vad som definierar begreppet den terapeutiska relationen, samt att ge en beskrivning av vad man som professionell samtalsledare bo?r ta?nka pa? na?r det ga?ller att skapa en sa? god terapeutisk relation som mo?jligt. Detta har gjorts i utga?ngspunkt av kvalitativa djupintervjuer med sju professionella samtalsledare, vilka i sina respektive beskrivningar, tillsammans kommit att utgo?ra en bild av hur man kan se pa? dessa tva? olika aspekter av begreppet. Det insamlade materialet fra?n dessa intervjuer har sedan kommit att tematiseras utifra?n en hermeneutisk tolkningsmetod, varpa? resultatet tolkats utifra?n ett socialkonstruktivistiskt, samt ett inla?rningsteoretiskt perspektiv. Av resultatet framkom, bland annat, att en definition av begreppet den terapeutiska relationen var sva?r att sa?rskilja fra?n konkreta beskrivningar av hur en samtalsledare bo?r arbeta fo?r att skapa en god terapeutisk relation, samt vilka personliga egenskaper som utma?rker en god terapeut. Nyckelord:, Common factors, Den terapeutiska alliansen Den terapeutiska relationen, Four stages of competence, Samtalsbehandling, Socialkonstruktivism.

Taiwan has over the past thirty years experienced a substantial political transformation. Being ruled by Chinese nationalists since World War II, Taiwan started its democratic transition in the late eighties. The new democratic system did not only provide people with freedom to vote, it also marked the beginning of a search for a new national identity. Based on the international theory of constructivism, this paper defines and studies the Taiwanese people?s progression away from a dominant Chinese national identity towards a uniquely defined Taiwanese identity.

This essay follows a Media Teacher in her work as a coordinator and an artistic leader for a European project called Legalopoli concerning laws and ethics in a senior level school for 13-16 year-olds in Mora, Sweden. The students write film stories about how their characters have to make choices in ethical dilemma situations. Then the learners create interactive computer games together through practical film work. At the same time we can see how the educator also gets into difficult ethical situations, when she is working with the students. This forces her to self-reflection.