The purpose of this study was to investigate how the special education, for children with language impairment in preschool, was organised in a municipality in Sweden. The study was based on interviews and field studies as the primary research tools in qualitative and ethnographic method. The result showed that special education teachers were localised in different geographic areas of school and that there were preschools that lacked special educational expertise in language impairment. Literature and the importance of playing for language development were emphasised as well as the use of signs and visual aids as augmentative and alternative communication. In the preschool for children with language impairment, the teachers carried their knowledge into practical and pedagogical work.

Neighbourhood offices were established in the municipal of Lund by a decision in the municipal council 1999. During following years four offices opened in the surrounding villages; Veberöd, Genarp, Södra Sandby and Dalby. By using a goal oriented model and making interviews I study whether the offices reaches the goals of more effective service, developed IT-support, a stronger local democracy and a better feeling for service. The offices has improved the information to the citizens and efforts have been made to strengthen the local democracy but more complex matters can not be handled at the offices today, which is a disappointment for many involved.To explain the result of the evaluation I use Vedungs ?A general theory of public efforts result?.

Research now shows that the Individual Educational Programs (IEP) are dominated by individual- oriented actions. This despite the fact that the school`s policy documents advocate that IEP should be viewed in context of the school`s activities. Support must be seen from a holistic perspective and the student`s difficulties will be related to the whole school environment. In an attempt to understand why the individual- oriented actions are still there, I have studied how specific IEP are formulated, and how it relates to the school`s policy documents.In the study, I used discourse theory as a method. By examining the I E P in educational activity, I wanted to find the meaning with which the concept of individual, group and organizational level were filled.The results show that the IEP in comparison with the policy documents mainly differ on the definition of group and organizational level.

This study examines whether social media had an influence on the revolution in Egypt. Social media was an important tool for the revolution since the president Hosni Mubarak and the Egyptian regime strictly controls the media. However social media was not the determining factor for the revolution, the revolt evolved due to many underlying factors. Social media facilitated communication, made the mobilization effective and, spread information to the inhabitants and to the rest of the world. The authors are discussing this theme from the new institutionalism perspective, democracy- and revolutionary theories and based on six selected interview persons; activists, researchers and journalists..

AbstractThis paper is a comparative study of the final reports of the Norwegian and Danish power studies performed in 2003. While the Danish study found that democracy is thriving, the conclusion of the Norwegian power study was that democracy is in a crisis. The purpose of this paper is to find explanations to why the studies in two Nordic countries arrived at such different results.Methodologically, the paper consists of an ideological text analysis and critical analyses of the discourse. In order to study how the results of the power studies can differ so considerably, the following aspects have been surveyed; 1) external contexts (government inquiries); 2) work process (the researchers? background, role and co-operation); 3) the problem areas and themes studied; and 4) power perspectives.

Purpose/Aim: The comprehensive purpose is to study how the political journalism is framed, and how the party leaders, with focus on the authority, are constructed in the press.Material/Method: Firstly 84 articles articles printed in the swedish newspapers Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet have been analysed. Secondly, a textual analysis by means of a critical discourse analysis.Main results: Media are inclined to frame politics as a game or a strategic race. The partyleaders are ascribed authority in different ways. This ascribed authority can also be deconstructed.Key words: Media and politics, party leader, discourse, democracy, framing theory.

In 1974 the three municipalities of Åsele, Dorotea and Fredrika were amalgamated despite of hunger strikes, mass protests and a serious threat of violence. But after six years the marriage shattered as Dorotea left the other two after years of continued struggle. In 2005 the idea of an amalgamation of Åsele, Dorotea and Vilhelmina municipalities was brought to life by an older and ever declining population.By creating a democratic ideal type consisting of the three variables ? legitimacy, participation and identity ? this study assesses what impact an amalgamation of the three municipalities might have on local democracy.Combining a qualitative and a quantitative approach this study concludes that amalgamating the municipalities today could create a democratic unit lacking legitimacy, having a weak identity and impeding participation. But the study also brings forth that the impact of an amalgamation upon the variables of the ideal type as defined is not written in stone.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the view of literature within Swedish governmental cultural policy. The main issue is to discover changes in attitude towards democracy, literature and library by comparing the attitudes in the governmental policy documents from the 1970s with the governmental policy documents from the 1990s. The theoretical starting point is Danish cultural policy researcher Dorte Skot-Hansens theories of the development of cultural policy in the Nordic countries. My method of analysis is a textual one, analysis of ideas and ideology, focusing on the aspect of signification of a text. The study has an effort of analysing the governmental policy in terms of idea and ideology.

The aim of this study was to compare educational systems in Sweden, Czech Republic, Italy and Scotland. In the light of the Bologna Declaration signed in 1999, I was particularly interested in comparing social work educations in these four countries. Especially to clarify how far they have come to fulfill the goals of the common European educational policy.Central questions asked were: How do the educational systems look like in each of the four countries? How are the social work educations organized in each of them? In what ways do the social work educations differ? How can we explain such differences?Each country in this study represents a different welfare regime, and therefore I was challenged to find out if this has an impact on the implementation of the incentives of the Bologna Declaration. By studying various documents from the European Union, documents from each country and presentations of various social work programmes, I have come to the conclusion that the differences found mainly depends on the historical and socioeconomic traditions in the countries.

This study investigates how social interaction affects newly arrived pupils? views on their study situation in the Swedish educational system. The aim is to give a contribution to the discussion on the notion of including ?the Other? in educational practice in multicultural schools. Semi-structured group interviews were conducted to explore how the intercultural perspective and the theory of inclusion can be used to explain the dynamics of social interaction.

This study investigates the potential of a rhetorical theory of knowledge to expand beyond its own domain and into political theory, specifically theories of deliberative democracy. Despite the increasing interest in communication in democratic theory in the last decades, the majority of theorists have not turned their interest towards rhetorical science. On the contrary, theorists often regard rhetoric as dangerous and incompatible with the deliberative ideal of reason. The aim of this study is therefore to defend rhetorical science by investigating how the rhetorical theory of knowledge ? as it is presented by Chaïm Perelman and Oldbrecht Tyteca, and further developed by Mats Rosengren and Maria Wolrath Söderberg ? can contribute to the understanding of deliberative democracy.

Over the period as a student at the Master's Program for Educational Leadership, I have learned thatsometimes the participants School?s management shows concern regarding the purpose of studyingat such a program. The curiosity of what that might devolve upon got me to immerse myself in theapproach to and attitude towards competence development within educational leadership.The essence of what I wanted to examine was how the students from the above mentioned Master'sProgram perceived the treatment they received from supervisors and colleagues and if it waspossible to explain the attitude that the participants in the study reported. I also wanted to examinewhat issues, related to competence development and leadership within the school system, highlightsthe treatment of participants in educational leadership.The results are based on questionnaires and interviews and are divided into four categories; thesupportive, the unaffected, the discouraged and finally a side category to explain how to handle thediscouraged?s lack of support.

Archives Day is celebrated in Sweden on the second Saturday of November every year since 1998. The aim of this study is to examine how and why Archives Day is celebrated at five archives in the Stockholm region.My empirical material consists mainly of semi-structured interviews with archivists at five archival institutions in the Stockholm region. I have chosen to only interview archivists and not any visitors due to the time con-straints and the scope of the thesis. I have also examined how the goals stated in a government report are carried out in the work with Archives Day.The theoretical framework of the investigation is gathered from educational theory as well as archival theo-ry. For the educational approach I have used John Dewey?s theory of what makes an experience educational to examine whether Archives Day is an educational experience or not.

This paper is written to take a close look at teaching methods used at the Summer Academy (SHS), which is held at Södertörns Högskola in Stockholm. SHS is a subdivision of the institution of teaching education, which annually, during summertime, offers an eight-day program for pupils between 13-15 years of age, from different schools located in socio-economically disadvantaged suburbs of Stockholm. The intention of SHS is to give the participating pupils an insight into higher education, especially that of university. The purpose of the activities, such as field trips, guided tours and corporate visits, is to make pupils aware of their own responsibility for their educational situation through different methods of knowledge transfer, to diversify the means of the education, and to bring awareness to the array of possibilities which they have access to within the Swedish system of tertiary education.The study is based on six deep-interviews, three with pupils and three with student mentors. Together with 131 surveys from the course given during the summer of 2014, and theories of John Dewey on ?Learning-by-doing?, the results show that pupils participation in SHS give them a better understanding for, and knowledge about their own educational responsibility.Another question this paper seeks to address is how significantly the SHS program is changing the pupil?s experience of education in general and their view upon higher education specifically.

AbstractOne aim of this thesis, has been to explore how discursive frames are constructed, frames to relate to, compare with, and therefore be part in shaping political subjects. The other aim has been connected with a more empirical platform, where I wanted to discover how these frames are established and structured discursively within a political organization, among its members; in this case with a foucs on the Swedish social democracy and its former leader Olof Palme. The thesis starts with a theoretical presentation and discussion, where focus is on the concepts of ideology, discourse theory in the form of Laclau and Mouffe, and narrative theory. The concepts will be presented and discussed, and also related to the other concepts to see their theoretical potential, both ontologically and epistemologically. Finally the theoretical rudiment is linked and analyzed with the empirical material.