Bachelor essay in political science by Marie Åberg, autumn 2011. ?Harm or benefit? A critical view of the theoretical grounds of the international development aid?. Supervisor: Professor Mats Lindberg. The first of the dual purpose of this essay is to present international aid policy ideas and the theoretical grounds of international development aid.

Many research reports mention the fact that a huge number of all system development projects never reach a successful ending; with other words never fulfil formulated goals. By identifying and forming success factors (and in some aspect risk factors) that the project manager in practice can use, this study may be seen as a step in the direction towards minimising the high number of failed system development projects. The purpose of this research report is to investigate how a system development project, where the development process is based on a specific development or process model (in this case the Waterfall model), can and should be driven. I aim to clarify what is demanded of a project leader for the specific development process and give an account for which eventual leadership qualities that can be well suited for given situation in relation to the need for technical competence. Among other things the project manager should inspire confidence, drive, be a decision maker, engage and own some form of basic knowledge in the field of system development.

Title: Adults who have been suzuki children speak out - A study of the consequences of the Suzuki method in five adults' lives. This study deals with a quite unexplored field: the consequences that the Suzuki method, that among other things is based on learning by listening and early beginning, can have on a child's life. This can be useful for those generally interested, for Suzuki teachers and even for those who are critical to the Suzuki method and have asked for more research about it. I have performed interviews with five adults who have all grown up with the Suzuki method of learning in Sweden. Based on their answers I have also analysed their experiences in relation to Suzuki's view on child development, the thirteen basic principles of the Suzuki method, Howard Gardner's opinion on the Suzuki method and previous research in Sweden.

AimThe aim with this essay has been to investigate how preschools profiling in motor activity training, work to stimulate motor development of children. In order to study this, the main focus for the research has been on the following queries:What characterize motor activity training at the preschools studied?What is the purpose with the motor activity training of preschools which were studied?How do the preschools describe the affect that motor activity training has on children?How do the preschools look at the need for motor activity training?MethodFour in-depth interviews were conducted with representatives of the chosen preschools profiling in motor activity. My selection was based on a strategic sample and this was made by an internet mapping of preschool activities in the districts of Stockholm, and information from the service guide of the town of Stockholm. Then e-mail was sent to ten contact persons at preschool units, and ten preschools were contacted directly by phone.

In the curriculum for Swedish pre-school the focus is mainly on five concepts. These are care of the children, learning, influence, rearing and security. These concepts are to characterize the activities of the pre-school in Sweden.Back in time the focal point of pre-school activities for young children was mainly on security. The learning part became more prominent as the children grew older. When speaking to teachers and parents I do sense that some believe this is the case even nowadays.

The study highlights teachers´ perceptions of creative writing as part of learning processes in the subject of Swedish, based on creative activities. The background to this study comes from the curriculum that describes opportunities to experience different kinds of knowledge. Creative activities in various forms and the ability to one´s own creativity is emphasized. The empirical data in this study is collected through qualitative interviews with four practicing teachers. The result shows that there are two different views according to creative writing as a text creation.

This study centres on learning to read and methods for teaching reading skills. The aim is to provide a survey of the concept reading skills and the methods developed on the basis of different theories and the methods preferred when teaching children in primary school and why. The study is based on interviews with eight teachers who are working on a dailybasis teaching Swedish in preschool class or lower primary school. The result of my study is that the majority of teachers do not use a specific method, but rather combine several different methods, thus adapting instruction to each individual pupil. .

The thesis aims to understand how learning processes are affected when an organization split into two separate organizations. The study is designed as a single case, covering a new government agency?s takeover of a core activity from another agency and the use of a purchase-provider split between the agencies, providing the new agency with IT-services. The findings revealed a difference in productive system and knowledge types between core- and IT-activities. The core activity was found to be dominated by explicit knowledge while the IT-activity seemed to be dominated by a mix of explicit and tacit knowledge.

In this essay, I will treat the view of learning and musicianship among educated and uneducated musicians in improvised music. The survey is based on six different interviews with musicians in improvised music. In my inquiry, I have found that there are some differences between the two groups in their view of the subject..

AbstractThis essay aims to problematize and illuminate the connection between special-education and nature-based activities. With a theoretical ground that is based upon a sociocultural perspective I consider the information from the field. Through a qualitative and critical perspective I performed individual interviews with five pupils from the sixth school-year in the Swedish elementary-school. I also performed Focus-group interviews with two educators and three teachers in the same school-form. By a Hermeneutical working-method I have found out that the informants in my survey have a common experience that activities performed in nature has a positive effect on learning.

The aim of this study is to examine the attitude among teachers towards working in subjectspecific groups, so called professional learning communities. The questions being asked arewhat the teachers want to acquire from working in them and how they consider them to beorganised.Previous research show that professional learning communities are means of strengtheningteachers and their teaching from criticism from outside stakeholders such as local politicians,but also parents. They are also means of developing the teaching and the individualteachers at schools.A qualitative study has been made at a Swedish secondary school and is reported in thisstudy. It was done in a hermeneutic discourse and when analysing the results four categoriesof answers appeared. It showed that the teachers working in professional learning communitieswanted to acquire a qualitative discussion regarding what should be taught and in whatway that should be assessed.

With this empirical essay I want to research how and why pedagogues use music in their preschool activities. Music is important to me and in relation to the new educational plan I have cautions about that the esthetic subjects may be less prioritized than before. The purpose with my study is to find out preschool pedagogues perspective in learning and evolving children?s educational matters through music. I base my literature theories in this study on Vygotskij and Fröbels theoretical perspectives.

This study aims to analyse the connection between poverty reduction and sustainable development through strategies used for the reduction of poverty. With the methodology of content analysis of three policy documents to provide and easy overview of how the government of Ethiopia is planning to achieve sustainable and long-term poverty alleviation. The focus of this study will be on Ethiopia, a country with very high economic growth in the past years but still with hight poverty rates. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the already existing and broad knowledge and research of sustainable development and poverty alleviation and contribute with more research in Ethiopia where the research done in this specific area and region is not in abundance. In this study all dimensions of sustainable development, social, economic and ecological are included to get a more holistic picture of the sustainable development in the government?s plans and its challenges.

The deregulation during the last decade within the airline businesses have called upon a more fierce competition among airlines. This fact forces airlines to continuously focus on service development in order to offer attractive solutions to satisfy customers changing needs and stay competitive. This paper focuses on service development at Scandinavian Airlines. The aim of this case study is to examine the sources of information used in service development and new service development at Scandinavian Airlines. Further the aim is to examine whether information derived from customers can be shown to play a more important role in either service development or new service development.

Existing studies concerning private labels are unclear as to whether private label manufacturers carry out product development themselves. Furthermore, there is a lack of studies comparing product development processes in private label companies and national brand manufacturers. This study highlights a set of critical product development factors and assesses their prevalence in four different companies in the Swedish retail business. The study is based on a number of qualitative interviews with key personnel responsible for various table fats. Findings indicate two levels of involvement in the product development process on the private label side.