The aim of this two years master thesis is to explore the relationship between public libraries and deaf adults. I want to know if deaf adults are a prioritized group in Swedish public libraries. Deaf adults use Swedish sign language witch is a visual language and differs from Swedish. I discuss the difference in Swedish Sign Language and Swedish and the importance of Sign Language literature. I also explore what methods can be used for mak-ing the library service towards the deaf group more customer centered and service oriented.The lack of sign language knowledge among the library personnel can lead to communication barriers.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka ifall invandrare och svenskfödda med utländsk bakgrund någon gång har utsatts för etnisk diskriminering under deras liv i Sverige och hur denna etniska diskriminering i så fall sett ut. Följande frågeställningar har använts för att besvara syftet: har respondenterna någonsin utsatts för etnisk diskriminering i Sverige, om ja hur har diskrimineringen kommit till uttryck samt upplever de respondenter som utsatts för etnisk diskriminering att den på något sätt påverkat deras hälsa? I studien användes en kvalitativ metod med individuella intervjuer som datainsamlingsmetod. Respondentgruppen bestod av två invandrare bosatta i Sverige och tre svenskfödda med annan etnisk bakgrund. Tolkningen av det insamlade intervjumaterialet utfördes med hjälp av de hermeneutiska principerna.

Slovenia and Latvia are two examples of countries which have gone through a successful democratic transition. They were both under authoritarian rule and command economy up until their declarations of independence in the early 90s. Today they have a functional market economy and political pluralism. I have examined transition theories highlighted by Jonas Linde and Joakim Ekman and from these theories sought the explanations to what lies behind the successful transitions of these two countries. The transition in Slovenia was affected by liberalization from within the ruling communist party which then controlled much of the transition process. A relatively large civil society and the fact that Slovenia was not involved in the Balkan War also contributed to the short process.

The purpose of this two years master thesis is to examine the potential benefits of using bibliotherapy on elderly Finnish immigrants residing in Sweden and living in geriatric care. The basis of the study is a four week long bibliotherapeutic project implemented at a nursing home for Finnish-speaking people in Stockholm County.Participants were men and women spanning in age from 70 to 90 years old. Common for all the participants was that they had lived their entire adult life in Sweden, their only language was Finnish, and they had the diagnosis of dementia. The study examines the bibliotherapeutic model of Arleen McCarty Hynes and Mary Hynes-Berry, as well as Inger Eriksson?s approach for the use of bibliotherapy in nursing homes and hospices.The empirical analysis is based on field notes from the bibliotherapeutic sessions and from interviews with librarians and nurses involved in the project.

In the years between 2012 and 2014, Burma has been shaken by waves of violence against Muslims which has resulted in destroyed mosques and shops, at least 140 000 displaced and 200 killed persons. The person who is said to lay behind this violence is the Burmese Theravada monk Ashin Wirathu. Being the founder and leader of the radical Buddhist movement 969, he has been accused of indirectly motivating violence against Muslims and has been portrayed with titles such as ?The face of buddhist terror?. This essay investigates the relation between Wirathu and the anti-Muslim violence by applying the method of content analysis on a speech of him.

This paper analyzes governance of cultural and ethnic integration. The study has a comparative perspective between five municipalities in Skåne. One aim in this thesis is to clearify the ratio between the state and municipal authority and how municipalities exercise their autonomy. I analyze the advantages and disadvantages in different governance methods linked to how the municipalities are working in practice and what problem the integration policy is intended to eliminate. I also resolve the influence of officials and citizens in the policy process.My conclusion is that direct ruling to a large extent is limited by indirect control.

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.

Diabetes, speciellt typ 2, är ett växande globalt hälsoproblem. Idag är det cirka 220 miljoner människor i världen som är drabbade av diabetes och siffran uppskattas stiga till 366 miljoner fram till år 2030. Sverige är ett mångkulturellt samhälle, vilket ställer högre krav på att hälso- och sjukvård ska anpassa omvårdnaden till varje enskild patient med diabetes. Syftet med studien var att belysa uppfattningar om egenvård vid diabetessjukdom hos personer med olika kulturella/etniska ursprung. Studien genomfördes som en allmän litteraturstudie där tio kvalitativa forskningsartiklar analyserades.

A violent conflict emerged in the Indonesian province of Aceh in 1976, with the rebels of the Free Aceh Movement, GAM, on one side, and the Indonesian government on the other. GAM demanded Aceh to become independent, but the Indonesian government did not accept their nationalistic claims. The conflict therefore lasted for almost thirty years, and many civilians were killed during this period. This essay deals with this particular conflict; its causes and its solution. In the centre of the analysis we find theidentity of the Acehnese people, and the way in which this identity has beenconstructed and re-constructed throughout the history.

Utbildningsradion (Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company) is a public service broadcaster with a mandate to produce and distribute educational programmes. 80% of Swedish teachers use its products either during lessons or for professional development. Utbildningsradion?s guidelines, set by the Swedish parliament and government, state that the company?s programmes should meet the interests of the country?s whole population, regardless of their background.The purpose of this study is to examine how Utbildningsradion?s products that are intended to be used in a classroom setting for ages 6 to 9 represent the variety of children that live in Sweden and thus reflect the aforementioned guidelines. The main focus of this research project was further defined to only include the company?s television programmes produced in Sweden between 2006 and 2011 that do not have social issues as the main subject.50 programmes were analyzed using quantitative content analysis and the following results were further interpreted using mainly Kydd?s and Snead?s models for discussing representation.

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.

AbstractThe purpose of this thesis is to examine the professional female members of a board in listed companies. During the 21st century the issue of female quotation into the executive boards was discussed in both the media and politically due to womens underrepresentation in these contexts.The main purpose of this thesis is to examine the professional female members of boards stories of the role models they have, what characteristics have evolved, the views of others, and the self image. In addition, we want to investigate how women perceive themselves in a male-dominated field to identify how the female identity is created at work.Through a qualitative research in the form of personal interviews, we have gathered empirical material that forms the basis of our results. The answers from the interviews have been analyzed with the help of relevant theories and a social constructionist approach throughout the thesis. For our theoretical approach, we primarily chose symbolic interactionism, identity theories, and concepts such as the glass ceiling and gender strategies to analyze the data.The result of the survey shows that there are many elements that play into how women form their identities.

In recent years, revelations about illegal international adoptions have made headlines around the world, and one notable country where many illegal adoptions have been facilitated is Chile. To find out that one's adoption wasn?t facilitated legally is a shock for the individual that raises many new questions about themselves and their origins. This study intends to examine how the identity of stolen adoptees has changed in their adulthood after they have found out that they were stolen, as well as to investigate how they experience alienation in Sweden from their position as both stolen and non-white adoptees. Qualitative methods have been employed in this study: participant observation, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and informal interviews.

The Roma people have many times, and for a long period of time been described in a negative way, as a group of people unlike every other. Both novels and encyclopedias has been a part of this misleading discourse and therefore contributed to large misunderstandings. Also scholarly research from Sweden, and elsewhere, has featured inaccurate representations of the Roma people and altogether this has created negative attitudes towards Roma people which are still today a considerable problem.However, the last few years positive changes has taken place and today the Roma people is an official minority group in Sweden which, among other things, has led to promising possibilities, especially in schools, for a deeper understanding of the Roma people in the future. Reading Roma literature I believe is an important part of this.Katarina Taikon and Hans Caldaras both consider themselves Roma. They also have in common that they want to give voice for the group of Roma that has lived in Sweden since mid-nineteenth century.

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.