This study examines how the American comic book industry?s output is addressing the issue of Islam and in which manner the portrayal of Islam in the great American comic book universes have changed since 2001. The comic books are examined from the postcolonial perspective as formulated by Chandra Mohanty and the power and resistance-perspective as formulated by Michel Foucault. Examination of the comic books reveals far greater focus on universal values, orthopraxy and inclusive perspectives than it does on dogmatic teachings, orthodoxy and sectarianism while at the same time partly relying on generalizations and archetypes concerning Islam. To change the power balance requires what I call intervention from the objective, that is to say that ambiguity regarding Muslim characters has to be eliminated by the narrative.

This paper investigates, through an actor-network theory perspective, how the recreation area Lo?vsta-Kyrkhamn-Riddersvik northwest of Stockholm has developed from being a dumping site into becoming a nature reserve. This investigation also tries to describe and explain which values that have been promoted in the area by the local voluntary associations and companies. Lo?vsta-Kyrkhamn-Riddersvik has been inhabited for more than 3000 years, originally with farming as the most important business.

This study aims to examine how social workers, in the Swedish social services, perceive and interpret LVU § 3 from a gender perspective. In total eight social workers participated in the study, attending interviews based on a vignette. From a gender perspective we wanted to found out how the social workers define "other socially destructive behaviour" and understand their thoughts about this subject. Moreover, we aimed to see if social workers perceive any differences between boys and girls behaviour. Based on several theories, two gender theories and concepts we have analysed our result from the interviews.

AbstractGroup processes within the free play- in a socialpsychology perspective In our socialpsychology study we have demonstrated how children?s free play is by observing 2-5 years old children in preschool. We have also interviewed two preschool teachers. The major subject in this study is how children?s group processes expresses in their free play.

This study deals with sustainability reporting in three governmental and three non-governmental Swedish companies in different industries. With increasing demands from the society regarding company?s CSR - Corporate social responsibility, the perspective of accounting gets broader and covers even non-financial information to meet not only the owners? demands but also others stakeholders' requirements. Sustainability has become an important tool for creating company?s business value and a positive sustainable external image.

The essay deals with hierarchies that occurs between inmates in prison. It deals with a theory that these hierarchies, when seen through a gender perspective, can be understood as a hierarchy where you are valued based on traditional male characteristics. Empirically, the paper consists of interviews with five inmates, or former inmates, who during a period in his life, has served a prison sentence at a closed institution. Based on the informants' statements, conclusions are drawn about which properties are valued low in the hierarchy. This becomes clear when the informants speak humiliating about sexually deviant groups, snitches, or sex offenders.

The aim of this paper is to elucidate and analyze history teacher's didactic choices in the conflict between unequal educational materials and the requirements of equality in the curriculum of Swedish secondary school. The empirical data consists of interviews with five secondary school history teachers, observations of their lessons as well as analysis of their tests. The starting point was to investigate teachers' didactic work in the role as a bridge between the non-equal historiography presented in textbooks in history and the curriculum?s demands for equality. Three different approaches have been observed in the teachers' didactic work when considering gender perspective into their teaching: that women become extensions in a male-dominated historiography; that another part of the story is presented when a gender perspective is considered; and that the gender perspective is included in history teaching and becomes an integral part of all the content of the subject.Several of the teachers acknowledged that gender equality is less prioritized than the courses core content and related assessment criteria.

Syftet med vår studie var att att se vilka diskurser som finns kring barnperspektivet bland socionomer verksamma inom barn- och ungdomsenheter. Genom att identifiera diskurser kring detta begrepp var även målet att kunna bidra med ny kunskap kring hur barnperspektivet kommer till utryck och tolkas av utredarna. Vi har använt oss av kvalitativa enkäter med öppna frågor. Enkäterna delades ut till socionomer verksamma inom barn- och ungdomsenheter i åtta kommuner i Sverige. Resultatet har sedan tagits fram med hjälp av diskursanalys.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how companies offering tailor made products on the internet, can work with their marketing and their customer relationships. The study will answer the purpose from a service management perspective and there will also be presented theories from an Electronic Commerce perspective.The starting point for this study was the qualitative method. The essay builds its empirical material from interviews with knowledgeable persons in the subject and the owner of the company whose products are tailor made and sold on the internet. It was conducted seven interviews, four of which were face-to-face, two conducted by mail and finally there was made a telephone interview.Conclusions have been drawn based on the empirical material and theory. The study has been able to identify three concepts that are central to this type of product: Site-building, customer involvement and promotion & relationship management..

The purpose of this study was to examine how SOS Children's Villages as an organization in Swaziland is affected by, and takes into account, the cultural, organizational and societal context in which it acts. Material was gathered through a field study during one month in one of the three SOS Children's Villages in Swaziland. The study has a qualitative approach and is based on the result from 12 semi-structured interviews with village mothers and other representatives from the organization. The other representatives were: social worker, program director, child and youth development coordinator, board member and educational manager. Since this study is both characterized by a specific historical, cultural and organizational context, we decided to connect the postcolonial perspective with an organization theory with focus on the concepts of culture, power and a children?s right perspective.

This study is an institutional analysis of the firm both as it is theoretically conceptualized and how it takes shape and changes. The role of power relations between manage¬ment and employees is especially examined with the aim of evaluating pos¬sible connections between the firm as an institution and power relations within it. Based on a comparison of two cases (two selected periods of the same organization) it asks ?How closely does each case match the conceptual characteristics of the firm??; ?What are the power relations between management and employees in each case??; and finally ?What factors account for the resulting differences??. It is found that there is a negative correlation between employee power and proximity to the firm as a concept.

The thesis aims to increase our understanding about parents reasoning about the elementary school choice by studying which factors parents perceive as important during the decision making process and also by giving meaning to Pierre Bourdieu?s concept of capital through the parents perspective. The empirical material comes from seven BNIM-interviews made with parents, which has been analyzed according to the thematic field analysis.The results show that the parents are not especially concerned about making an active school choice. Stability, closeness, friends, rumors, development and adaptability to the reality are the factors that are perceived as the most important in the decision making process. The school choice has a limited meaning as an investment in social capital, from Bourdieu?s perspective.

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the reasons to why management consultants choose to leave their positions at large and established management consultant companies. The empirical data are made up of eleven interviews with men and women, both management consultants that have left their previous positions as well as a consultant who has chosen to stay with her first company and a representative from one of the large companies active within the management consultant industry. We have used the Job Embeddedness Theory combined with theories about identity, legitimacy, institutional norms and gender in order to understand the thoughts and reasoning behind the management consultants´ resignation. We have found that issues with the work itself and characteristics of the industry prevent the management consultants from being embedded within the management consultant company. Rather, some of the characteristics of the industry such as ?up or out? and the need to constantly perform work as a ?pushing-out mechanism?.

Background: Following an increased awareness concerning social and environmental aspectsin society, more enterprises establish sustainability reports in order to inform theirstakeholders about the company?s sustainability duties. A previous study indicates that themetal sector is enjoying relatively limited increases in business opportunities and/or financialvalue of corporate responsibility. Another study suggests that there is a gap in expectationsbetween producers and users of sustainability reports due to an uncertainty regarding whatinformation such reports should contain and what audience such reports should target. Thequestion is whether or not a gap in expectations concerning sustainability reporting is acontributing factor to the limited increases in financial value in the metal sector?Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine how a sustainability report should becarried out by a company in the steel industry given what information the company and thestakeholders consider as essential in a sustainability report.Methodology: To accomplish the purpose of the study, a deductive approach was used due tothe availability of suitable theories.

The study consist of an investigation regarding the implementation of reassurance policing in Sweden and include a survey conducted among some of the local police offices in Stockholm County. The aim of the study is to investigate how the police officers working in the local polices offices experience the implementation of the local police offices and if the implementation of local the polices offices matches the police authority´s purpose with the project. The study uses the theoretical framework from political scientist Michael Lipsky calledStreet-level bureaucracy - Dilemmas of the individual in Public services which discuss the role of street-level bureaucrats and their influence in the implementation. Included in the study is also two different perspectives on governing in public sector called top-down perspective and bottom-up perspective. The findings of this paper shows that the police officers are in general positive towards the implementation and that there´s a duality among the police officers regarding the proximity to the citizens..