?Liberal Democracy? is a common term in political theory, and it is used as if it had a commonly accepted referent, with both normative and descriptive content. This is certainly the case in democratic theory, where it on the one hand seems to refer to a normative democratic model; on the other hand it is used descriptively, to refer to real-life democracies. The deliberative democratic sub-field is not an exception; on the contrary, the term is frequently used albeit rarely defined; yet the concept it refers to is supposedly developed enough to allow detailed propositions about its citizens?s political behaviour.This essay is an attempt to analyze how Liberal Democracy is used by three deliberative democrats (Jürgen Habermas, John Dryzek and Stephen Elstub), in order to understand the democratic model (or models), whether normative or descriptive, they refer to.

This thesis examines the conditions for participation in the decision making process of a possible mine establishment in Storuman municipality in the north of Sweden. This is done through a case study where the main actors are the mining company Nickel Mountain AB, the municipality Storuman and the Sami village Vapsten. As a theoretical framework Cecilia Eriksson?s division of democratic theories is used as a starting point. Methods as described in deliberative democratic theory, such as discussion by effected community members, are seen as a method within the participatory democratic tradition, not a theory of its own.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate some aspects of teaching environmental issues, as they are manifested in another culture. In this paper, I will discuss how you teach environmental issues, how the teaching environment is formed, and what an environmental issue means to a South African teacher, as well as, if there are any cultural aspects to what an environmental issue is. Seven observations were made and qualitative interviews with four teachers teaching Life Science in Cradock, South Africa - The results showed that these South African teachers, independent from each other, followed a similar pattern in their teachings. These patterns contain gathering information concerning environmental issues in the immediate surroundings, as well as using the text book and teaching environmental issues through lectures. It was not possible to draw a conclusion about the cultural aspects in association to environmental issues.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate how some teachers interpret, teach and assess listening strategies. Our investigation was based on interviews and a questionnaire answered by some year 9 English teachers. Furthermore, the aim was to study whether awareness and teaching of listening strategies are important for teachers in their everyday practice. The results indicate that the teachers interpret listening strategies as purposes for listening, such as listening for detail or the whole. The teachers do not explicitly teach listening strategies, and they do not assess them.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent municipalities in Sweden use democratic innovations to include citizens in the decision making process. Along there are three research questions:? What different forms of democracy innovations are Swedish municipalities applying in order to increase the civic participation between elections and what forms are dominant?? What potential influence in decision-making are citizens getting through these democratic innovations based on the results?? Based on the results ? in what ways is the democracy innovations used in municipalities challenging representative democracy? The method used to fulfill the purpose and answer the research questions is a web survey including 287 of 290 (in total) municipal websites. The theoretic framework includes a model which is called ?Smith?s ladder of participation? and is influenced by the research of Graham Smith and Sherry Arnstein.

The study focuses on the use of poetry in language teaching in the lower grades in the Swedish school. Poetry has a reputation of being an art form with such specific rules and structures that children and teachers think that it is something that they do not have the ability to work with.  The purpose of this study is to get an understanding of how poetry is used in educating children. My research is based on the following questions. To which extent is poetry being used in schools and how is it being used?Can you as a teacher see any effects on childrens language development by using poetry?As a part of my study I have met with and interviewed four different people, who in one way or another is involved in teaching children. Two working teachers in the lower grades, one pedagogical resource and one artist that work with teachers in reaching different goals through the help of aesthetic processes.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ongoing changes in German family policy. It explores the issue of whether the German welfare state, in this policy field, can still be regarded as a conservative welfare model or rather approaches a more liberal or social democratic model. A qualitative method is used to analyze the material, especially from the German government, including press releases, other public documents and also articles from the political weekly magazines Der Spiegel and Die Zeit. The changes analyzed are the new parental benefit, the expansion of child care, the concept of whole-day schools and the system of joint taxation. The point of departure is Gösta Esping-Andersen?s categorization of three types of welfare states: the social democratic, the conservative and the liberal.

This essay presents an alternative approach to the predominant democratic analysis of the European Monetary Union. As the Treaties stipulate the political conduct within Monetary Union and put certain restrictions on the European politicians they are to some extent constitutional in their character. Essential for constitutional theory is the concept of precommitment; according to which a decision is made in t1 purposing to obstruct certain actions in t2. In light of this the aim of this essay is to investigate whether or not delegating monetary responsibility to the ECB can be seen as an example of constitutional precommitment and if so, if this constitutional perspective can add something to the predominant democratic analysis of the EMU. According to the author the EMU is by and large a form of precommitment as the leading politicians in Europe figuratively have tied their hands from intervening in the common monetary policy.

This is a qualitative and hermeneutic study where I describe, analyze and interpret four Swedish teachers' perceptions of the importance of writing as a way of acquiring knowledge. The purpose is to highlight attitudes to writing and their impact on the teaching practice. The theoretical background discusses the autonomic aspects of scripture and pedagogical positions concerning writing instruction. Results show that the teachers teaching positions can be traced back to their approach to writing. However, in this study, it is difficult to tell exactly what these consequences are because the approaches of the teachers? are similar.

The goal with this thesis was to look at various aspects of how teachers and students perceived the use of various texts in the collective teaching context in which they are participants. The purpose with that was to provide insight into aspects of the didactic processes that the texts and the usage of them are part of and demonstrate aspects of both the conditions and the opportunities for teaching conducted within the surveyed education. The essay analysis is based on interviews with four teachers and twelve students in a total of four teaching contexts (within subjects: Swedish and SO/Religion) about texts they worked with during a selected period of work.The essay is based on a theory of Kathleen MacCormick and Torlaug Hoel Lökkengaard where reading and writing are described as both an individual cognitive process and a common cultural process, impossible to completely separate from each other. The students description of their use of the texts show how they are influenced by teachers culture of teaching, in turn, influenced by the curriculum. In relation to Wiksten Folkeryd, af Geijerstam and Edling research on students movability in texts in the Swedish school, the survey shows some of the aspects that enable students to develop a higher level of movability in texts within the subject Swedish.

?Liberal Democracy? is a common term in political theory, and it is used as if it had a commonly accepted referent, with both normative and descriptive content. This is certainly the case in democratic theory, where it on the one hand seems to refer to a normative democratic model; on the other hand it is used descriptively, to refer to real-life democracies. The deliberative democratic sub-field is not an exception; on the contrary, the term is frequently used albeit rarely defined; yet the concept it refers to is supposedly developed enough to allow detailed propositions about its citizens?s political behaviour.This essay is an attempt to analyze how Liberal Democracy is used by three deliberative democrats (Jürgen Habermas, John Dryzek and Stephen Elstub), in order to understand the democratic model (or models), whether normative or descriptive, they refer to.

The school is a place of work where teachers, with different tools, are supposed to teach their students for the future. In the study the teachers? opinions will be lifted when it comes to use of computers as a tool to teach the students how to read and write. The interpretation is that the use of computers is reflecting the development of society and the intention is to find out if computers will be used in a didactic purpose in teaching. We focused on getting knowledge about which different opinions there are among teachers in grade 1-3 when it comes to the use of computers as a tool in teaching how to read and write.

The purpose of my study was to explore how preschool educators in Kenya look at children's influence on teaching. Researchers have argued that the formal educational system in Kenya today is a remnant of its days as a colony when people were expected to blindly follow rules without questioning them. I have used qualitative interviews as a method in order get the most concrete understanding of educators? views on the influence from children. The educators I interviewed were based at a school I visited in Kenya.

Deliberative democracy theory has been prominent within political science research since the early 1990?s, often applied in studies on postnational democratic constellations, in particular the European Union. Of the main institutions of the union, the European Parliament stands out as somewhat understudied from this point of view, which is why the main aim of this thesis is to study the conditions for deliberative democracy in the European Parliament.From deliberative democratic theory four criteria have been selected to function as methodological framework in analysing the institutional structure and proceedings of the parliament. Each of the criteria is applied separately to the practice and function of the plenary sessions, the parliamentary committees and the political groups. The analysis shows that the conditions for deliberative democracy differ between the three fora, as do their respective roles in parliament, but all in all they supplement each other.

The number of blogs, from weblogs, are increasing every day. Blogs are also becoming more visible in the public debate as well as the awareness of their existance is rising among politicians and citizens. The aim of this thesis is to answer the question what democratic potential blogs can have. This question will be answered by initially studying the research that exists today about weblogs and democracy. The second part of the analysis consists of a selection of texts from weblogs that touches this subject.