The purpose of this study was to examine two medium-sized municipalities are working to people with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to go from daily activities to a paid employment in the regular labor. Work is seen as a civil right and is a measure of participa-tion in society. The Swedish government believes that the work must be available to all that includes people with intellectual disabilities. Even so, daily activities, the contribution of LSS is increases the most. The daily activities will offer incentives, development, and community and shall contribute to people get access to work or studies.

This essay is regarding the problematic facts about child poverty in Sweden. Since the beginning of the new millennium child poverty has increased, in Sweden. The last report which came out in the spring this year (2012) opened up for a lively political debate as well as big headlines in news papers and other media. The attention it got in Society became hard for the politicians to avoid. The Swedish section of Save the Children, demanded in their report concerning child poverty in Sweden that the Swedish Government need to do an inquiry about the increasing child poverty.  Today in Sweden, there are two big parties, and they have been the biggest for a long time now.

In 1970 professional boxing became illegal in Sweden and in 2009 the prohibition was removed.Just before both of these changes in the law there were debates in media where people argued forand against ilegalization. In the later debate the focus has shifted from professional boxing toinclude Mixed Martial Arts(MMA) as well. MMA was governed and bound by the same law asprofessional boxing.This purpose of this paper is to compare the debate in 1968-1969 with the debate in 2006. The twodebates resulted in two different outcomes, ilegalization of professional boxing in 1970 and thenlegalization of it 2009. Are there any reason for these differences? What is the reasoning behindthis? By using hegemonic masculinity as a guidance when examining the debates this paper istrying to understand how the discourse have changed over time.

This essay deals with the social services cooperation with the private sector relating to foster care. The aim was to examine whether and what the causes may be that the social service transfer tasks of authority to private actors. Furthermore, we have examined and discussed if such a working procedure can lead to consequences for the individual child and how / if the children's legal security is affected. Survey methodology is qualitative in nature where we conducted semi-structured interviews with three persons who work in different ways to be involved in work with a foster family. We have also made use of questionnaires sent to social workers around the country.The result has been interpreted on the basis inter alia, legal texts, legislative history, and two theories which have their origin in organization theory.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the mobile library development in Sweden since the start in Borås, Sweden in 1948. We have concentrated on three six-year periods. Our aim has been to describe a part of the mobile library development. We wanted to research the background of the said development. To do this we also studied the library and overall development in Sweden during the same years.

In Sweden, prostitution is politically defined as a social problem, more precisely, as a form of male violence against women. The definition is distinctly manifested in the government bill Kvinnofrid, characterised by the unique Swedish law that prohibits the purchase of sexual services.This thesis examines how the Swedish solutions of prostitution are carried out. By interviewing central actors working with prostitution in different ways we aim to answer the question: What measures are taken to decrease prostitution and what implications does the Swedish solution have?The analysis is divided into two parts. First, we analyse the concrete measures taken against prostitution ? what is done, how, and why? Second, we analyse the complexity of prostitution measures by applying complementary analytical perspectives: the symbolic and the discourse perspective.The study shows that measures taken to decrease prostitution vary and depend on individual actors? understandings of the political definition.

Following essay discusses the possibilities of using a gender perspective when studying local governance within a Swedish context. Governance is an international concept used to describe a more lose, informal and network based way of doing politics The main purpose for conducting this essay is that traditional theoretical frameworks used in the study of local politics are not enough to fully conceptualize the complexity of our changing political environment.After a broad summing up of what had been done in the recent decades within Swedish political science on the topic of local politics and gender I came to the conclusion that so far nothing had been written on governance. The next step was therefore to conduct a pilot study to cover the subject matter of governance and gender. The study was based upon interviews with five female politicians in Malmoe city.Results showed that governance, in terms of informal networks did exist, and had influence over the local politics. Some of the networks were male dominated.

This essay examines the role religion plays in kindergarten. Today, the Swedish kindergarten provides child care for a secular and multicultural society where religion is considered a private matter that should not influence government nor the policy documents of kindergarten and elementary school. According to a study by Jenny Berglund, there is a so-called Protestant bias present in the Swedish elementary school. Protestant bias is shaped by a ?marinade? of liberal Protestant Christianity and has an indirect influence on how other religions are described, how religion is defined and how concepts such as religion, tradition or culture are viwed.The study was also based on Ninian Smart?s dimensions of religion, whichcorrelates to Berglund?s theory on Protestant bias.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka huruvida jämställdhet på landsnivå kan förklara individers lycka. Studien undersöker också om jämställdhetspåverkan har olika betydelser för män respektive för kvinnors lyckonivåer samt om individers attityd till jämställdhet gagnar lycka beroende på vilken jämställdhetskontext individen befinner sig i. Livstillfredsställelse används i studien som ett mått på lycka, då kognitiv helhetsbedömning anses påverkas mer av jämställdhet än lyckans affektiva beståndsdel. Undersökningen görs med hjälp av flernivåanalys och datamaterialet som används kommer främst ifrån ESS, European Social Survey och är således subjektiv data. Resterande datamaterial består av makrodata hämtat från Human Development Report och The Quality of Government Institute.

Recent years there has been discussed how the critical situation in the housing market threatens the Stockholm region's growth. The thesis objective is to examine whether there is a scientific link between the lack of housing supply and growth. The thesis also intends to identify solutions for increased housing construction, for instance by examining the conditions for a greater regional perspective and influence on the region's housing supply. The thesis empirical study is based on semi-structured interviews with representatives from the Government, municipalities and the housing industry.In Sweden, research on the relationship between housing shortages and growth has not been conducted to that extent it can be said to exist scientific evidence regarding the growth threat. However, in Britain and the U.S, empirical studies show that a lack of housing supply has hindered growth through negative impact on countries' gross domestic product.

The aim of this Master?s Thesis is to examine the importance of literacy and reading in a country like Jamaica. What role do public libraries and bookmobiles play in promoting literacy, and how does this work correspond with the UNESCO public library manifesto?To answer this, interviews were conducted with nine Jamaican librarians, and study visits were made to libraries and bookmobiles. In addition, development plans, policy and other relevant documents were analyzed.

The overarching goal of this paper is to explain the intensive occurrence of partnerships ? regarded as a specific organizational structure ? in the formulation and implementation of Regional Growth Programs.By using theoretical concepts from new institutionalism, the paper tries to examine the explanatory capacity of this theory in the specific case of partnerships. The basis is a skeptical stance towards the conventional interpretation that views partnerships as rational organizational tools. Hence, the purpose of the paper is also to compare our own institutional explanation with the conventional.The paper finds that the occurrence of partnerships can be understood as the effect of an intensive institutional pressure. The government has, in what we regard as the institution for regional development, prescribed the partnership as a rational solution ? a rationalized myth - to the regional growth problem.

This essay examines the role religion plays in kindergarten. Today, the Swedish kindergarten provides child care for a secular and multicultural society where religion is considered a private matter that should not influence government nor the policy documents of kindergarten and elementary school. According to a study by Jenny Berglund, there is a so-called Protestant bias present in the Swedish elementary school. Protestant bias is shaped by a ?marinade? of liberal Protestant Christianity and has an indirect influence on how other religions are described, how religion is defined and how concepts such as religion, tradition or culture are viwed.The study was also based on Ninian Smart?s dimensions of religion, whichcorrelates to Berglund?s theory on Protestant bias.

As a result of a successful human development around the world an extensive urbanization of societies are taking place that are networked in various ways. In these networks, increased travel and digitization are central where individuals and organizations converge in a constant and immediate wireless and mobile technology flow. An example of this is Stockholm and its public transportation company Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL). Although most participate in most of the network society, SL is struggling with an audience that seldom travel with them: families with children. We intended to find out how the communication of SL´s digital platforms could get families to travel more with public transportation.

Gender equality is a political issue that has gained a lot of support in the last decades. Researchers have however pointed out that gender equality has a wide variety of understandings.SKL (Sveriges kommuner och landsting) is an organization that looks after the interests of local authorities and county councils in Sweden. SKL has by the government been granted 145 million Swedish crowns to support gender mainstreaming at a local level. During a period of three years, 2008-2010, funding has been given to 89 projects for this purpose.The aim of this study is to examine what meanings are given to the term ?gender equality? in these projects.