This thesis analyzes the media debates generated by the election of Omar Mustafa to the board of the social democratic party, and the appointment of the conservative Minister of Labour, Elisabeth Svantesson. More specifically, the aim is to analyze newspaper material through a discourse analyze, to see if and how religious affiliation effects the possibilities to act as a political representative. Theories of othering and intersectionality serve as theoretical points of departure. Further, chains of equivalence from Laclau and Mouffe?s discourse theory are used to study how categories as ?us? and ?the other? are constructed in the material, and how these processes of categorization relate to the intersection of religion, gender and ethnicity.

The aim of this graduate essay is to elucidate and compare the approach to learning that emerges in texts about the two educational practices Montessori and Reggio Emilia.The guiding research questions in this study are:What do Montessori and Reggio Emilia that learning is about?The mean Montessori and Reggio Emilia that learning goes to?How do you describe the Montessori and Reggio Emilia justification why it is important to learn? Through a poststructural theoretical framework and text analysis the study focused on what has been written about learning in the traditions of Montessori and Reggio Emilia.The results of the study indicate that both Montessori and Reggio Emilia look at the child in a similar way in which the child have the desire to explore and learn. Both pedagogy traditions think that the child will develop into independent people who can change society in the future for the better and with a democratic basis.The study also reveals how the Swedish curriculum (Skolverket, 98/10) is inspired both by the Reggio Emilia and Montessori traditions through describing how preschool should stimulate and challenge the child's development and learning, utilize and strengthen the interests of children to learn to conquer new experiences, knowledge and skills..

The Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) has for a long time often been labeled a populist political party. It has however not been the subject of in-depth study to what extent the party really is populist. A study on whether the party and its supporters fulfill the criteria that a social science definition of populism would stipulate is therefore needed, in order to establish accurately whether the party is populist.    The definition used in my study accentuates three qualities that specify populist organizations: an antagonistic attitude against prevailing power structures, demands for increasing democratic influence and advocating a certain people?s rights ahead of others.The qualitative analysis of documents central for the party shows that it fulfills all of the criteria illustrated in the definition that is the basis of my study.

The purpose with this degree thesis was to investigate the preschool teacher´s view onchildrens´s influence in preschool routine situations. The target group for this study ispreschool teacher´s that currently are working with children that are 1 ? 5 years of age. To manage to answer the aim of this study semi-structured interviews were conducted. I have performed interviews with five preschool teacher´s that currently work in a preschool that is situated in a medium sized city, in the county Värmland, Sweden.

According to the theory of elitist democracy civic political participation should be reduced to participation in the democratic elections. This essay examines whether a high rate of institutionalized political participation beyond the elections leads to: (a) that those who are included gets a more favourable treatment at the expense of the common interest, in other words that their self interest threatens the political equality, (b) reduced freedom of action for the politicians and the headmasters, (c) the emergence of vague conditions of responsibility. These hypotheses are examined in an empirical study of user-boards at four schools on three locations in southern Sweden. In these user-boards the parents are in majority and have the right of decision, which has been delegated to them from the local government and the headmaster. The main conclusion is that, based on this empirical investigation, there is no support in any of the hypotheses.

The aim of this essay is to investigate the situation for democracy in China. The study raises two main questions. They are as follows: Are there obstacles to a democratization process in China? and Are there openings when it comes to a gradual change for democratization in China? The theoretical framework consists of Robert A.Dahl´s Polyarchy theory, and in addition , five factors promoting democracy. Also the notion of an MDP-society (a modern, dynamic and pluralistic society) is looked upon.

AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to study in what way teachers in preschool work with pupils enabling them to gain influence and involvement in their learning.Influence means being able to make your voice heard which is an important component of a democratic society. Involvement is about being part of a community in which everyone is welcomed regardless of beliefs and opinions. Several of today's researchers believe that learning occurs in interaction between people. Teachers providing meaningful assignments to pupils, they become more motivated to learn.The study is based on observations of how teachers work with influence and involvement in controlled sessions, and interpretations of them. My results show that children become involved in their learning when they are confronted with a variety of pedagogical approaches to learning.

A co-operation is established when a group of people, sharing the same preferences and values, come together in order to satisfy a common need. The co-operative association should be democratic, governed and supervised by its members and open to everyone. The purpose of this article is to, from our ideal type, study similarities and differences regarding the corporate governance of the consumers? and the producers? co-operative movement. The motive behind our choice of alignment is that the mechanisms of corporate governance often are described from the perspective of the joint-stock company, making it valuable and interesting to study these mechanisms from the co-operative point of view.

In the digital era, new services have entered the public libraries, like seeking information on the Internet, in databases, newspapers online etc. But many citizens do not know that these services exist. The libraries have a democratic responsibility to inform about them. In the county of Östergötland a project started in 2001 where libraries in five small municipalities built websites in which they present all their electronic services available. One of the aims was with the help of different kinds of marketing to reach special groups of people, like adult students, small companies and politicians.

America finds itself divided in the midst of strict abortion laws and a contentious presidential election. This era of polarization, raises the question of whether such a great division has permeated through to the U.S Supreme Court. This paper uses two dominant theories of legitimacy; traditional and ideological, respectively, to analyze and compare this issue. The theories are compared empirically by investigating the level of public trust across opposing political affiliations. Unlike most previous research, the results suggest that variation in trust aligns with the ideological distance to the Court between democratic and republican voters. Trust is also found to be dependent on whether the electorate agrees with the decisions of the court or not.

Is accountability possible in global environmental governance? The purpose ofthis thesis is to examine if accountability is possible in global environmental governance. From an accountability perspective the thesis tries to illuminate global environmental governance. An investigation about the conceptaccountability is made and the thesis also illuminates the possible problems that exist in global environmental governance which exist of such a large amounts of different and often private actors. By investigating and examine the concept of accountability from different aspects and by using Global Compact as a example of global environmental governance the thesis try to answer if accountability actually exist in global environmental governance and in what way it is possible to demand accountability.

The aim of this essay is to try to find the differences and similarities of two public librariesin the town of Kristinehamn and the rural community of Vara during the year 1994. Especiallyinteresting was if the different political traditions of the two communities -left wing majorityin Kristinehamn and right wing in Vara- have influenced the forming of the public libraries.The comparison contains accounts from the annual reports produced by the libraries between1987 and 1994, a more thorough study of the activities and interviews with decision makers in1994. The interview with the decision makers indicates that there is a distinct difference betweenthe librarians and the rest of the informants, this distinction shows, that in a tight budgetsituation the librarians prefer not to cut down on staff while the other informants actuallyfavour to make cuts on the procedures handled by the librarians. The general opinionthough, is that they all agree that the role of the public libraries is to defend democratic rights.The final conclusion is that the material of this essay supports the opinion that the idea ofpublic libraries is stronger than the political differences in Vara and Kristinehamn..

This study's interest area loops around how it is possible to understand texts' leverage over human thinking and acting. Focus lies on understanding which forces that form people?s views around men and women's relationships and relations in the public room. From this perspective our interest is to explore how the phenomenon rape is expressed in texts and how we can understand how rape through these texts are to be shaped in individuals' thoughts awareness and. Finally, it is also relevant to create understanding for how rape as a discoursive practice can have effects on individuals and society.

AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to study in what way teachers in preschool work with pupils enabling them to gain influence and involvement in their learning.Influence means being able to make your voice heard which is an important component of a democratic society. Involvement is about being part of a community in which everyone is welcomed regardless of beliefs and opinions. Several of today's researchers believe that learning occurs in interaction between people. Teachers providing meaningful assignments to pupils, they become more motivated to learn.The study is based on observations of how teachers work with influence and involvement in controlled sessions, and interpretations of them. My results show that children become involved in their learning when they are confronted with a variety of pedagogical approaches to learning.

Computational techniques have transformed the journalistic approach. Journalists now have the opportunity to integrate user-statistics from the news website with their work. Singer (2011) argues that journalists seem particularly afraid of items, which they perceive as trivial or otherwise unsavory, will prove popular - potentially creating management pressures to produce more of those stories. She describes this practice as ??traffic whoring??.