The role of religion, of religious individuals and organizations, is currently discussed within both a private and public sector of development. I have viewed documents from the World Bank and DFID where the religious presence is a growing fact and previous theories that religion would disappear with economic development have been abandoned. As a result DFID conducted a large study on the importance of religion for development work, RaD 2005-2011, under the directions of Professor Carole Rakodi. Rakodi (2011) concluded that religion was highly related to the success or failure of developmental projects, and to understand the values people had religion needed to be understood within its specific cultural context. She developed an analysis model to conduct this work.

The aim of this thesis is to study discursive change in the Swedish environmental political discourse between 1987-2005. The text of three Swedish budget propositions are analysed for this purpose.The results from the analysis are related to a few relevant theoretical perspectives that hold partly different views on what constitutes ?sustainable development? and ?ecological modernization?. Through these theories the thesis continues the discussion around the two central but somewhat blurry terms sustainable development and ecological modernization. The aim of this discussion is to conclude whether the discursive change in Swedish environmental politics can be said to go more in the direction of sustainable development or ecological modernization, or if elements of both perspectives can be found.The analysis shows that the Swedish environmental discourse has come to include more and more political fields such as general welfare politics, during the period.

Visitor Centers were first established at various national parks in North America. Most Visitor Centers were built in the ten-year period following 1952. The purpose of the Visitor Centers was to welcome visitors and enhance their experience of the national parks. Today there are Visitor Centers all around the world, connected to different places or attractions. Many of the Visitor Centers that exist today, especially those in the national parks in North America, were built during the information society.

The purpose of this study was to get a client perspective of the different ways to exit from a different role as a drugabuser, and furthermore, how to maintain a drugfree life.The questions of issue were:- What kind of social-psychological conceptions rules the process?- Which motive powers are essential to maintain drug-independence?- Are there any difficulties on the path to social adaptation?Our research was based on interviews with eight persons; five men and three women, from a treatment home in the south of Sweden. The method we used was semi-structured and with a thematic questionnaire. We chose this form due to the fact that we did not want to influence the interviews, as we wanted to know the persons opinions.The result of our study showed that the interviewed persons have some difficulties to adjust in the society and to find new friends especially the interviewed persons with maintenance treatment. Marginal problems as, for example, the lack of not having a work or a home can complicate a further development for the group with maintenance treatment.

This study aim to investigate the conditions framing the professional development situation for physical education teachers (PE) in a small municipality in the south of Sweden. The Swedish National Agency for Education declare that "focus must be directed towards strengthening the teachers' profession", and that "schools need well-trained teachers and good teaching to help students achieve good results". The study focuses both the schools? contribution and the way in which the teachers take own initiative and are motivated to develop their professional skills. The investigation is all based on teachers' perspectives.

AbstractIn Sweden all persons under the age of 18 are considered children. The age when it is possible to be held responsible for a criminal act, and therefor convicted in court, is 15. Society?s and, perhaps first and foremost, the authority?s attitude towards juvenile crime is that they should not be equal adults in the process within criminal law. Because children are considered essential for the society of tomorrow, it is important to pay extra attention to crimes committed by juveniles.

This essay is about why and how the media is integrated with Swedish as a subject. The purpose of the study is to investigate if the teachers who use different media when teaching Swedish consider that this pedagogy develops the students? learning. I also aim to find out if there are any differences and/or similarities between the teachers.To fulfil the purpose I have done a qualitative study with three teachers who work at a school. I have focused on following issues: How, when, where and why do the teachers use media when teaching Swedish?The investigation shows that media is popular today and it is becoming more so all the time.

The objective of this graduate work is to gain a better understanding in how pre-school educators are able to work with music in their pre-school activity to promote child development. We also want to enlighten possible factors for the development of children based on music and to form our own ideas of whether teachers choose to apply music in their didactic practice or not.The point of this essay has been to attempt answering on what importance music makes for children's development and learning in pre-school, and how teachers could work with music in pre-school in order to promote children?s development. Our data consists of six interviews and two observations realized at a pre-school in Södertälje.We took heed from the theories laid out by Lev Vygotsky's which describe four different levels of development that includes educational development in social interaction between teacher and child. Our choice of this theory is inspired by our seeking deeper understanding of Vygotsky's theory´s application to the aesthetic approach in the interaction in meaning making and learning.The result of our study confirms previous theory and research in that music as a form of expression has a major impact on children's development.

The aim of this study was to examine the existing discourse of assault in Aftonbladet from the years 2012 and 2013. We have studied news articles and analysed them by using discourse analysis as theory and method.The study shows that the portrayal of perpetrators and victims in assault cases tend to differ depending on gender. The women is portrayed as weak and part of a homogeneous group while the man is portrayed as dominant and offered a more individual role. The study also shows that the normative group is separated from the deviate groups in society. The analyze show that media, through this representation, maintains the normative power in society.

In the process of globalization, identity has become one of the central factors.An understanding of the difference that makes up our society has made thequestion of weather is it possible to envision a society where difference is thecommon ground, one that has been up for contest. To answer this we need to seeif this kind of democracy is possible at all. For this I?m turning to the socialmovments who while they are working close to the reality also can give us somereal answers. Therefore I have looked at how social movements adress identity,difference and conflict and concluded that three things are crucial in organizing ongrounds of difference.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate mindfulness as a New Age phenomenon in the modern western society. Since a religious phenomenon does not exist in a vacuum, but is dependent on its historical and cultural context, my aim is to give a broad depiction of mindfulness and New Age in its wider context, the historical background and the societal implications of common values, themes and concepts that are frequent in the literature, how mindfulness is presented by the authors of popular literature and also how it is presented in science. In order to bring forward a deeper understanding of New Age and mindfulness? role in the modern western society, my intention is to see how the authors of mindfulness claim validity of their doctrines in the discourse. Mindfulness attracts a wide range of perpetrators and is used in many areas in the society today.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze and understand how producerbrands are able to communicate their brand through today's marketing channels, also how development and changes that occur in the society can affect the producers communication abilities. We have seen a tendency that many retailers have created their own brands that are competing with the producers, this leads to the fact that producers in some cases are having trouble communicating their brand to the end-consumer. The fact that the producers marketing through retailers now is more limited than before, the producers now have to capture the consumers wants and needs through other channels.This essay is based on a qualitative method involving seven interviews. The persons that we've chosen to interview are carefully selected based on their specific knowledge about the subject in question..

The purpose of this study is to show what melancholy and irony in my poems express and what techniques that are used to accomplish these effects. Many theorists, among them Sigmund Freud and Julia Kristeva, characterize melancholy as an experience of loss, and therefore one of my questions is what kind of losses appear in my poetry. In search for an answer I analyze the texts from both a psychoanalytic and a sociological point of view. In the latter perspective I discuss the postmodern society using concepts from contemporary thinkers like Zygmunt Bauman, Fredric Jameson and Jean Baudrillard. Finally, I also examine if melancholy has an influence on the form of the poems.

The Swedish traffic system is congested, especially in the urban areas; travellers face daily growing traffic jams and delays in public transport. In a congested traffic system, travellers need support to make smart and sustainable decisions and one such tool is traffic information.One issue today is that too few travellers use traffic information in support of their travel. Research shows that travellers would see great value in receiving the information; however current systems do not meet their requirements. This is a problem since the society would benefit greatly from a well functioning traffic information system.In this report, a number of channels that can be applicable for providing traffic information will be explored, with particular emphasis on interference information.The information channels are analyzed based upon the needs and requirements of the society and the traveller. The thesis of the report is: the more of these needs and requirements are met in a channel; the better is the channel to use for traffic information.

When Vladimir Putin in the year 2000 came to power in Russia many believed that the Russian civil society were weak and had very little influence and with Putin people say that the situation have deteriorated. The purpose of this paper is to establish what kind of relationship exists between the Russian state and the civil society and to analyze this from a top-down perspective. We are looking at Russia during Putins first term in office from the year 2000 until 2004. In order to establish the relationship we have used John S. Dryzeks theory of inclusive and exclusive state and whether it?s active or passive in this process.