The increasing significance of social economy as a concept is linked to general global processes such as the crisis of the welfare state, neoliberal globalization, anti-bureaucracy tendencies and decentralization, but also to a growing political interest in human rights and social development. In Sweden the idea of the social economy generates wide support within civil society as well as within the government and across party political boundaries. Furthermore, what is problematic in this context is the fact that the discussions on the subject tend to be relatively uncritical and often it seems as if though the expansion itself is the main objective. The emphasis on cooperation and the third sector in terms of welfare production implies a set of risks in relation to state responsibility, democracy and the autonomy of civil society. This paper aims to explore those risks and how they can be dealt with within the Swedish context..

This work is a study of subject teachers in social studies and science understand the concept of sustainable development. The work uses a qualitative and a quantitative approach. Teachers in various schools and stages have been answering questions about how they perceive sustainability, how they implement it in teaching and if they feel that school is important for the future of sustainable development at large.The theoretical background is based on environmental ethics as well as the different meanings and definitions of the concept of sustainable development. These theories and definitions are coupled with the empirical results.The study concludes that all teachers throughout the study perceive the concept of sustainable development as something ecological, something that has to do with nature. A few teachers also state economic and social dimensions.Questions about how the teachers in the study implement the concept in their teaching can be seen as three different approaches.

When Sweden acceded to the European Union in 1995 the term social economy was introduced to the Swedish context, gradually replacing the term civil society. This replacement can be seen as an indicator of a changing meaning of what the concept of civil society used to stand for.The aim of this essay is to study if it is possible to identify changing perceptions of the role of civil society for democracy in Sweden in government bills between 2002 and 2008, and, if so, what effect does this have on the delineation between the civil society and the government.An analytical model is proposed consisting of two dimensions which both capture the roles of civil society for democracy and the model examines how those roles relate to the government.The conclusion is that the government still sees the main function of civil society as a democratic school and a change agent for democracy. However, there is strong evidence to suggest that the civil society is increasingly regarded as more of a welfare producer than a fosterer of democracy..

The aim of this study was twofold; firstly it sought to describe the human security situation of Roma IDPs and IDPs living in collective centers, secondly it tried to create an understanding for how the human security situation can affect IDPs capabilities to develop. The findings of the study were mainly based on a field study conducted in Belgrade, Serbia for two months. The results of the study were that IDPs in collective centers have a poor human security situation regarding basic income, employment, adequate housing and experienced personal security. Roma IDPs suffer from the same insecurities, but in addition also has poor human security in basic education and personal safety. Their stagnant human security situation proved to be the result of the inability to help IDPs by the actors involved in the relief work.

The aim ofthis study was to examine how economic growth affects the level of democracy inauthoritarian states. Some of these states have experienced high economicgrowth. However, one can discuss how it affects the country?s democratization-process.For that reason this study was needed to contribute to a clarification of howeconomic growth can affect authoritarian rule and democratization. This wasdone through an examination of the development in China.

The purpose of this essay is to try to understand the relationship between the structures of modern working life and the development of burnout. By using the method of qualitative interviews we wanted to see if the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model could be applied to the data we had collected. Two questions have been highlighted in our research:        ? Is it possible to establish a relationship between the structures of modern working life and the development of burnout among the subjects interviewed?  ? Is it possible to explain the development of burnout among our interviewed subjects through the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model?    Our theoretical frames are the general theories of the modern society and the modern working life as developed by Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Zygmunt Bauman. We have also used Johannes Siegrist?s medical-sociological Effort-Reward Imbalance Model (ERI-Model).

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate what the work situation of children's librarians looks like in the year 2000, after the changes in society which took place since the 1980's. Did the tasks of children's librarians change during the nineties, and if so, in what way and why have they changed? Which new knowledge needs emerged for children's librarians during the nineties, and what was the cause of these new needs? Finally I want to know which needs for professional development arose, and how these needs are fulfilled. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with children's librarians, library managers, library consultants, one representative of the Swedish school of Library and Information Studies and one member of SAB's children and youth committee. The study reveals that the identity of children's librarianship is strongly associated with the stimulation of language and reading.

Agencies towards Sustainable Development ? A Study of Environmental Management Systems in Governmental Agencies 2005A vision of the Swedish government is to build an ecologically sustainable society. A tool in this effort is to implement environmental management systems (EMS). The aim of the thesis is to present in which phase of the implementation of EMS Swedish governmental agencies are. This will be done by compilation and evaluation of agencies? yearly environmental reports.The thesis is written in co-operation with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Swedish EPA).

The aim ofthis study was to examine how economic growth affects the level of democracy inauthoritarian states. Some of these states have experienced high economicgrowth. However, one can discuss how it affects the country?s democratization-process.For that reason this study was needed to contribute to a clarification of howeconomic growth can affect authoritarian rule and democratization. This wasdone through an examination of the development in China.

The aim of this essay is to find some of the main developing tendencies in the advertisement genre during the period of 1930-2000. The analysis is based on three examples of Gevalia cinema and TV-advertisement. Research findings are the result of using theories from different but relevant sciences, which are media, linguistics and rhetoric. Media studies help to explain the influence of the society and technology development on the advertising business. Linguistics and rhetoric give the main methods and terminology for the basic as well as comparing analyses of the three advertisements in question.

We are living in network society, where information and communication together with the technical development stands in the centre. Characteristic for network society is quick changes, new meaning of time and space, convergence and new possibilities of communication. Network society contains new technical developments, several with thepurpose to improve the possibilities of communication between human beings, which in some ways creates new social demands and expectations. In this study, I focus on the Internet, which is an important channel for the information, communication and marketing in network society. As whole network society, the Internet is constantly developing.This study, implemented with qualitative interviews, has the purpose to give new, deep and interesting knowledge about business to business companies? communication and marketing on the Internet.

The main purpose of this study was to examine how preschool teachers are working to promote each child's language development and whether they can ensure that they do that. Therefore I wanted to find out what a good language development implies for each teacher, how they work to promote each child's language development in daily practice, how they measure the actual language development and also what conditions the teachers have, to engage in a language development way to work. For the study, I chose a qualitative method, with structured interviews and all together I interviewed six preschool teachers, within the same organization in a suburb close to Stockholm.  The results showed that there is an ambiguity, among the preschool teachers, in what a good language development means, but it can be stated that they do have a language development way to work even if it needs to be developed. Further on, it has emerged that the teachers have the tools to measure children's language development, although they do not have the conditions yet to use the method to the fullest. About the preschool teachers own conditions in order to operate in a language development way to work, I concluded that they have a strong foundation to build on, but they still have much work ahead of them.

The discussion concerning what role the church and theology should have in a modern, western society is a question that is ongoing in Sweden as well as in other countries. The present; American theologians Stanley Hauerwas and Max L. Stackhouse have different ideas concerning the identity of the church and theology as well as their relation to the society they are in. This essay surveys their views on the church and the theology and how they should relate to the society. Hauerwas focuses his theology on the church, and the first part of the essay deals with his view on what makes a church, how it differs from the rest of the world and what the church?s calling is.

The market for management training programs is growing and the supply of the service is increasing and getting further diversified. A consequence is a market with a wide variety of definitions of the very concept of development, and subsequently a wide variety of practices and methods to achieve development. The individuals that are subject to these programs seldom know what they are purchasing, or what to expect. When assuming a transfer of the developers view on development to the subject, a need for a greater understanding of the concept arises. The purpose of this thesis is to understand what views on development do exist among management trainers and map underlying dimensions of the views to increase the understanding of the concept of development.

This study analyzes the political view of criminality and crime politics in three political parties in the Swedish parliament, Socialdemokraterna, Folkpartiet and Moderaterna. The study seeks to describe which kind of view these parties present on the criminality in our society. The material for this study is the ideologies that the parties descend from which are, socialism, liberalism and conservatism, the political programs of these three parties have also been studied as well as the parties proposals, political documents in the Swedish parliament. The current public debate shows that the crime politics is an attractive question and the parties may seem to have similar proposals on how to lower the criminality in our society. The theory that has been used to describe the results of the study is ?actors and structures? and the results are related to this theory as well as the theory has been used as an instrument to explain and sort the material and the results.The results of the study show that the parties are different in their views on criminality as a problem in our society.