This thesis explores how verbal and nonverbal signs communicate attitudes and the rhetorical functions of such attitudinal signs. Attitudes are regarded as rationalized evaluations of attitudinal objects, and through their manifestation in signs an attitudinal gestalt is communicated. This gestalt is regarded as the audiences perception of the rhetors attitude. It is shown that the attitudinal signs function as ethical, logical and pathetic proofs and that they can create identification between the audience and the rhetor. The signs can have effects on the audiences perception of the attitudinal objects, their perception of the rhetor and influence the social dynamic of the discourse.

The purpose of this study is to find out teachers view on manipulatives as a way to concretize a certain mathematical content and to highlight knowledge and experiences within the range of using manipulatives to concretize. By answering the questions below different approaches a teacher may have towards the manipulatives and how that may impact on student?s learning will also be discussed in comparison to mainly traditional and socially constructive theories of learning.What is the teachers view on manipulatives as a way to concretize?What purpose do they have when using manipulatives?According to the teachers, what does it mean to concretize a certain mathematical content?According to the teachers, what connection is there between manipulatives and concretizing?Through interviews and observations conclusions can be made that the teachers are in general positive towards using manipulatives as a way to concretize a certain mathematical content although the definition of what a manipulative is differ somewhat between the teachers. The teachers working with manipulatives do it in a well thought out fashion but more research is needed to furthermore define the purpose of using manipulatives. Few countries spend so much time concretizing and working with manipulatives as Sweden do, but still Sweden score below the OECD-average on the mathematical PISA-tests.

It is estimated that approximately 10 000 people are living in Sweden after having been rejected residence permit or asylum, meaning that they have to hide from the authorities while facing a risk of being deported by means of violence as they do not wish to leave voluntarily.For their existence, a vast number of people employed by the public administration can be expected to contribute to the wellbeing of the hidden people through their professions as bureaucrats.The bureaucrats can thereby be expected to be torn between different sets of value systems, roles and obligations towards the state and towards the hidden people.In this master thesis, I examine how five bureaucrats motivate their acting for the sake of the hidden people in terms of legitimacy, legality and morality in their administration, towards their ethic responsibilities and towards society as a whole.The results show that the bureaucrats see themselves as saviours of ethical values in an illegitimate administration where economic efficacy and arbitrary decision-making constantly transgresses The Human Rights, ratified by the Swedish Parliament..

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate how contemporary Swedish picture-books describe ethnicity. The analysis is based upon eight books that were published during the period 1996 to 2006. The thesis is based upon a qualitative content analysis and a model of analysis that has been constructed with inspiration from Maria Nikolajeva and Pil Dahlerup and their conceptions of analyzing literature. The study?s theoretical framework is primarily based on the sociology of literature and the perspective of the society in literature.

The educational underachievement of children in foster care has been known for a long time. This study aimed to compile and analyze the current knowledge about interventions, intended to improve foster children?s school achievements. The method used was a systematically undertaken narrative review. Despite a comprehensive searching strategy, only ten relevant studies were found, indicating that little has been done to improve the educational outcomes for children in public care.

This paper examines the relationship between the experienced quality in the offering of a brand, emotional attachment and consumer commitment. The study aim to explore several dimensions of the experienced quality in the offering of a brand. Further we examine two conceptualizations of emotional attachment - Brand Attachment and Brand Love - and intend to declare the two of being two separate phenomena. We then conduct a relationship-based analysis wherein the mediating ability of Brand Attachment and Brand Love, between the experienced quality in the offering of a brand and consumer commitment, is examined. Therefore we conduct a focused quantitative study, wherein 171 customers of the fashion retailer H&M have responded to a comprehensive survey both online and in-store, to examine this fun-damental relationship and its components.

Today's young people find themselves in an intense media traffic where many messages have a commercial nature. Some such messages are for example different types of advertising in various media and advertising often plays on the uncertainty that may be common in adoles-cence. New interactive media like blogs on the Internet has been established in recent years. Mixed types of media content, advertising with different messages, appear in blogs. Therefore, I am interested in how blogs on the Internet can influence young people's creation of their identity.

The need to attract and retain individuals who add value to the organization constitutes an increasing challenge facing human resource professionals. In this context it is essential to establish stronger links between the individuals and the organization they work for. The aim of this study is to explore and discuss the role of ethical core values such as trust, respect, fairness, and honesty as a critical antecedent to employee commitment. From the perspective of employees, a comparative case study is conducted in two organizations with two different reasons to exist - a profit organization and a non-profit organization. The study concludes that organizations should have a high focus on people's core values when they recruit new employees as well as for educating and training their existing employees and managers.

This thesis is an investigation of Iranian immigrants and their use of libraries in Sweden. It isbased on a combination of a qualitative and a·quantitative method.Using a qualitative method, I give an outline of the history of lran from ancient times up to the present, as well as the different ethnological groups in Iran and their cultures. The main objective of this part is to clarify the contrasts between Iranian and Swedish cultural, social, linguistic and family structures, and also the characteristics of the crisis that most immigrants go through on their arrival in the new country. The qualitative method also involves structured telephone interviews with eight highly educated Iranians.This method was supplemented by a quantitative study through questionnaires of the attitudes· of lranian immigrants to libraries and reading. Iranians in Sweden turned out to be frequent Iibrary users.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how health care providers, working at care facilities providing maintenance treatment programs for opiate dependence, perceive and manage the legal framework governing the treatment. The study is limited to a few particular rules within this framework which over the recent decade have been the subject matter of debate regarding i.a. their alleged lack of relation to scientific research and their frequently disastrous implications for program participants. The empirical material consists of interviews with five respondents working at four different care facilities and has been analyzed by using Lipskys theory on street-level bureaucrats as policymaking agents. The results of the study show that the rules are looked upon and dealt with in a liberal fashion and that the primary loyalty of the maintenance treatment staff is clearly directed towards promoting the well-being of their patients and helping them reach their treatment goals rather than strictly following the rules..

Many? luxury? companies? within? the? fashion? industry? today? choose? to? extend? their? brands downwards? in? order? to? reach? new? customer? segments? and? hence? increase? their? profitability.? A? brand? extension? strategy? that? leverages? the? core? values? of? the? luxury? brand? is? a ?new ?possibility ?for ?luxury ?brands ?to ?position ?themselves ?towards ?a ?broader ?customer ?base.?? Meanwhile? there? is? a? risk? that? the? extension? dilutes? the? image? of? the? luxury? brand? and? has? a? negative? effect? on? the? company? in? the? long? term.? Thus? a? tradeoff? exists? between? becoming? more? accessible? and? maintaining? the? exclusivity? of? the? luxury? brand.? The? objective? of? this? thesis ?is ?to ?investigate ?how ?luxury ?brands ?that ?perform? downward ?brand ?extensions ?to? reach? new? markets? can? succeed? with? this? strategy? without? diluting? the? brand? image.? This? is? achieved? by? studying? the? perceptions? of? the? new? target? segment? towards? the? extension? of? luxury? brands.? The? results? of? the? study? show? that? the? risk? of? brand? dilution? is? minimized when? the? core? values? of? the? luxury? brand? are? transferred? to? the? brand? extension? while? the extension ?at ?the ?same ?time ?is ?successfully ?targeted ?towards ?the ?specific ?customer? segment..

Background: Moral distress is an increasing concern among nurses in their workplace. Previous research has suggested that moral distress is associated with ethical climate and job dissatisfaction. Economic restraints in the organization have led to loss of nurses from the workplace. Aim: To examine nurses experience of moral distress and their causes. Method: The study was a literature review. Twelve articles were used in the study.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the properties of the municipalities in Sweden that influence the choice of being a certified Fairtrade city. The independent variables which are used in the statistical analysis are municipal governance, local tax rate, whether there is an university and/or university college in the municipality, average income and higher education in the municipality. The variables are examined by logistic regression. Since there are no statistical data on ethical procurement, this exogenous variable isn?t included in the regression.

The aim with the literature study was to describe how persons with dementia and health care workers in the geriatric care experiences soft massage and to describe the derived effects for persons with dementia. Scientific articles were sampled from the databases: Medline (Pub Med), Cinahl and Psyc INFO. The main results of the study are presented in three parts: how persons with dementia experiences soft massage, health care workers experiences of giving soft massage and the health care workers descriptions on derived effects on persons with dementia. The results showed that persons with dementia experienced a positive reaction to soft massage and the health care workers did no longer feel helpless in their care service towards persons with dementia. The studies showed that soft massage decreased agitation, wandering, pain and sleeplessness.

Corporate Social Responsibility, eller CSR har blivit något av en självklarhet hos företagenidag. Konsumenter accepterar inte barnarbete och de är miljömedvetna. Att ett företag haretiska och moraliska värderingar är inte bara viktigt ur just etiska och moraliska perspektivutan även för att kunna bygga och bevara ett starkt varumärke. Vi tycker att handeln med pälsär ett stort problem. Det finns allvarliga brister i den här branschen.