Abstract (magisteruppsats, 61-80p)This paper is concerned with the national sentiments in the Federal State of Germany,regarding the east- and west-German cleavages, since the unification of the country in 1990.The point of departure is the nationalistic theory crafted together by the scholar AnthonyDavid Smith, which implies an ethno-symbolistic perspective on the dynamics of nations.The main question in the paper is to which extent you can consider the East- and WestGermans to be a unity, considering the past and the forty-year-division. For this reason theauthor basically uses two different sources: scientific books and the German journal DerSpiegel.Founded on Smith's theory, the study contains a broad explanation for national identities incontemporary states, which ranges from pre-modern times, when the ethnic communities werecreated, to the national world of today.The discontinuity of the German case, represented by the separation 1949-90 of the Germannation into two entirely different societies, makes it possible to draw conclusions about whichfactor that has the pivotal impact on national identities.The result turns out to be that the national historical core-values and symbols of the currentGerman state and nation are more profound than the splitting national sentiments. Thus theGerman nation is likely to recover from its Cold War break-up.Keywords: German unification, A. D. Smith, Nation and nationalism, National identity, DerSpiegel.

Ett problem som jag såg när jag var ute på praktik var hur elevernas intresse och inställning till de naturvetenskapliga ämnena för vissa elever är negativa vilket leder till att de inte vill arbeta med ämnena. Tidigare forskning visar att detta intresse och inställning hos barn och ungdomar sjunker med de stigande åldrarna. Syftet med detta examensarbete är att undersöka vilken inställning som eleverna har till de naturvetenskapliga ämnena som undervisas i den svenska skolan. Utöver detta undersöks även vilka åsikter som dessa elever har till vad som ska göras för att de ska få en positiv inställning till dessa ämnen. Denna undersökning genomfördes med en kvantitativ enkätstudie hos fyra klasser med elever i årskurs 9 vid en kommunal skola.

On the first of October 2012 the media reported that the women in the Ikea cataloguehad been airbrushed in the Saudi edition. Initially the blame was put on either theSaudi government the Islamic culture or the Saudi franchise. In the end it wasrevealed that the Swedish company Inter Ikea Systems had the full responsibility forIkeas actions and therefore was the culprit behind the airbrushing. On whoseinitiative or why the airbrushing was done the media never found out. These areanswers only Ikea has, although they remain unresponsive to these questionsthroughout the news portrayal.This study methodology uses a qualitative content analysis as framework to furtherinvestigate the news media with support of theoretical perspectives such as mediatheory, power relations and cultural differences.

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare how and why consumers of different ethnic backgrounds value and prioritize product attributes among food in certain ways. We expected to find culturally bound attitude differences and our aim was to relate those to, and challenge, present knowledge of information structures. Consequently, we also aimed to use this new knowledge of attribute attitudes in connection to assortment variety theory, as attributes constitute important motives to how consumers perceive variety. A theoretical framework was constructed to suit our purpose and function as an analytical tool, consisting of Culture perspectives, Information structures (product attributes), and Assortment variety. In this thesis we focused on attitudes and consumer perspectives and excluded actual behaviour and the retailing perspective.

During the autumn of 2007 I carried out an investigation within the bank and finance Sector. The aim of the investigation was to see how informal aspects could be understood in relation to equality within Bank AB? The main question was: Which are the obstacles and opportunities for equality within Bank AB? To answer the main question I asked the following questions to the material: Are there any gender related different within the organization? How are men and women represented within the internal magazine? Which are the conceptions related to sex/gender within the organization? The investigation is based on a survey, the internal magazine was investigated and finally interviews took place. Throughout the investigation I used organization theory in a gender perspective. With the gender organization theory I examined concepts as structures, leadership, symbolism and changes associated with equality.

Individer som smittas av Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) och utvecklar Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) ställs inte bara inför en livshotande sjukdom utan drabbas dessutom av stigma som är relaterat till fruktan för HIV/AIDS. Stigmatisering är ett globalt problem som kan leda till diskriminering och försämrad livskvalitet för personen i såväl den privata som den offentliga sfären. Orsaken till stigmatiseringen är komplex och problematiken existentiell. Syftet med denna litteraturstudie var att jämföra påverkan på individen vid sjukdomen HIV i Europa respektive Afrika söder om Sahara. Resultaten i studien baseras på 17 vetenskapliga artiklar där fokus ligger på anledningar till att berätta om eller dölja sin HIV-status och vilka konsekvenser detta val kan få för individens liv.

This essay is part of a project between Södertörn University College and Stockholm Academic Forum. The focus of the project is gender equality in small- and medium sized companies. I have worked with a construction company called Activa . The majority of the employees at the company were male and I was interested in the consequences of gender construction in such an environment. I think that the basic condition for equality work is an understanding of gender and the male norm.

The concept of security is a contested one. The United Nations definition in UNDPs Development report of 1994 is the most authoritive and commonly cited. The civil war in Sudan has led to 2 million deaths and over 5.5 million refugees. In a resolution from 2005, the UN decided that the war in Sudan was a threat to international security and peace. The 10th of January UN decided that a peace commission ought to be send with 10 000 military and civil men including 700 policemen.The main purpose of this thesis is to improve our knowledge of those factors which can cause an increased risk of conflict within a state, and how that can affect the social conditions for individuals.

Background:Homeless persons who suffer of mental illness are one group which is marginalized worldwide. Homeless people have a fragmentary contact with healthcare and many of those who have drug abuse problems and mental illness are still undiagnosed. Still, this is not their only issue when various state agencies argue about who will take responsibility for this persons. Aim: To describe the factors that are perceived supportive or restrictive by homeless people with mental illness. Method: The material has been gathered via systematic and unsystematic searches and the study was designed as a literature review.

Sweden is today a country with ethnic, cultural and religious diversity. My aim in this study is to study what view of Islam and Muslims that students at a Catholic school in Stockholm have. The reason why Catholic schools are interesting to study is that previous research has showed that Muslim students around Europe often attend catholic schools as they are regarded as more tolerant towards religion. This study is based on a questionnaire and personal interviews with upper secondary students at the Catholic school in Stockholm. The result is compared with previous research on students of the same age group (12-15 years).

Over the past two decades, trends of integration processes in terms of citizens of different ethnicities, different gender and different sexual belongings, etc. has grown thanks to debates and new legislations. A marginalized and discriminated group in society such as women, immigrants, homosexuals, transsexuals and people with disabilities during this time has gained momentum in the community. The curiosity over whether these developments have changed our attitudes and values to the world around us, and if so how, is the reason for this master's thesis in disability studies.The Swedish development forms the basis for my belief on a younger generation of people who would be more tolerant than previous generations, in terms of what is considered to belong to the norm in our society, or not. The purpose of this study is therefore to increase knowledge about what beliefs young people today have about people with disabilities.

The aim of this study was to examine how social policy is created in a local context on the basis of the situation regarding the begging EU migrants in Kalmar, Sweden. The last few years the number of begging EU migrants has increased in Sweden. Most of them are Roma with a history of exclusion and discrimination. To reach our goal we interviewed three managers from the social Services representing the local authorities. We also did four interviews with people from three non-profit organizations in Kalmar.

The underlying purpose of this study is to see whether a library focused solely on providing literature in other languages than Swedish serves as a unifying, integrating force, or as an agent for division and exclusion. The study focuses on the International Library in Stockholm. The authors have created a profile of the visitors of the selected library, concerning their characteristics, their library habits and their perceptions of the International library. This profile has then been compared with the staff?s perception of the visitors as a group.

  ?this Unpleasent klientel?A study on refugee care in Växjö between the years 1944 and 1947.The purpose of this study was to examine the treatment of sick refugees in Växjö in the 1940s. To achieve this a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods were used. The material found in the local archive and local newspaper was then put together and analyzed from the theoretical perspective, gender, class, ethnicity and social status.The result of this study shows that there were two main treatment wards for refugees, one that was supposed to treat women and children with active tuberculosis and the other ward treated refuges with ?epidemic diseases.? Foreign citizens were also taken care of in other words that were also not meant for refugees only, like the Epidemic hospital, which treated about 80 patients of a foreign nationality between 1944 and 1946.

Parenting and parental leave in a career context is a highly topical subject in which discussions about gender equality and corporate discrimination against parents occur daily. Media has recently raised the theory of parenting and parental leave as having positive impacts on personal development, such as creativity enhancement, which may promote the individual's work performance. Despite the subject's significant value for society and organizations, no scientific research is to be found. This paper examines how an individual's creativity at work is affected when becoming a parent and if parental leave has any contributory effect. Furthermore, the paper identifies and scrutinizes four creativity theories that may help explain these changes in creativity.