The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine the ideological currents that have influenced the swedish school system since the 1990's. The background of my interest is the lively debate in schools and media about the new School reform 2011. My hypothesis is that education in 2011 largely will be influenced by neoliberal and neoconservative values. The method I`ve used is discourse and ideology critique, which examines the relationship between rhetoric and power. These concepts are useful to explain the ideological change in different policy documents and in curricula, for example Lpf 94 and School 2001. The theoretical framework is based primarily on the neoliberal and the neoconservative agenda, which are two distinct political rationalities in the contemporary postmodern world.

Background: Investors use companies? credit ratings as a base in their buy and sell decisions. Companies? credit ratings are also used as indicators of safety in the legislation. This means that credit rating agencies have an important role in the society because they communicate the company?s credit rating to investors and other actors in the society.

This essay focuses on tourists' information seeking. The main focus was to examine whether there is a connection between how the informants in different tourist styles the different tourist styles are presented by Eva Wolf as the tourist of recreation, action, culture, compromise, and individualism seek information to their forthcoming vacation. The result was reached through a qualitative method, where ten informants with various tourist roles were interviewed separately. The informants were chosen by personal contacts. In addition to these interviews, three representatives from the tourist industry were contacted and interviewed by e-mail.

Background: When someone suffers a spinal cord injury, the nerve impulses between the brain, the muscles and the skin are intercepted, thereby resulting in motion and sensory loss.  During the recovery process, healthcare professionals play a vital role in ensuring that the patients have a positive experience of care, recovery and rehabilitation.Aim: The aim of this study is to determine how patients at a rehabilitation clinic in Sweden experienced the following: The patient?s experience of how well they were received by staff, the staff?s ability to explain and inform the patient of important details concerning their care and the staff?s ability to involve the patients in their own care.Method: A qualitative interview approach was used when undertaking this study. Six patients at the rehabilitation clinic were interviewed, and the interviews were later analyzed using qualitative content analysis.Result: The collected material was divided into ten categories that were sorted into three subheadings: reception of staff, information and involvement. Reception of staff, with categories: helpfulness, commitment, consideration, professionalism and reception. Information, with categories: if the patients felt well-informed.

Background and problem: Corporate Governance is a well-known phenomenon which has been the focus of plenty of research where the board of directors and the CEO have been regarded as important actors. What's affecting decisions regarding these actors has been debated whereas media has been pointed out of having an impact. To decide whether or not media can affect Corporate Governance have shown to be problematic whereas it exists divergent views regarding this. At the same time this relationship is more explored in other contexts than the swedish one, although this one is considered suitable for this. Consequently there is a motive for examining medias impact on Corporate Governance in Sweden. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to explain if media has an impact on Corporate Governance at an overall level.

This master thesis summarizes contemporary theories on secularization processes in the Western world, and compares these with the example of Sweden, which by many scholars is considered to be the most secularized country in the Western world.I do this by dividing the most influential theorists in five different groups. In each group I explain how the theorists formulate and motivate their positions. These groups are:1) The secularization paradigm, where secularization always accompanies modernization. (Therorists: Steve Bruce and Peter Berger (in the 1960s)2) The paradigm basically accepted, but revised to depend on existential security, rather than modernisation as such. (Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart)3) Religion returned in the public sphere.

This Master's thesis aims to investigate the reference interview using the discourse analytical method discourse psychology. The reference interview has been studied thoroughly, and its importance has been proven repeatedly within the field of Library and Information Science (LIS). However, it has never been studied from a discourse analytical point of view before.The material for our study was gathered at Malmö public library, and consists of 10 tape-recorded and then transcribed reference interviews. Our study shows that there are several discourses within the reference situation. The dominating discourse, the reference interview discourse, is found within all the reference interviews.

This thesis examines the established theories on the phenomena of merger of equals. In contrast to an acquisition, a merger of equals is complex since the very nature of it entails that none of the involved parties are in control. Merger of equals are therefore viewed as one of the most difficult types of partnership and data show that over fourty percent of all mergers fail to achieve their targets. Still, research on the phenomena is limited. The main purpose of this thesis is to analyse the implicit factors to why a merger of equals fail.

This study investigates the concept of regionalism in the context of the Swedish middle-level political arena. The used method is qualitative theory and two cases are studied: Västra Götaland and Norrbottens läns landsting.The aim of the study is to see what the politicans think about Swedens regionalization process by compare the views of politicans that function in a region and in a county council. Do they have the same vision about what constitutes a region and which advantages do they see in working in a region or in a county council? Also dimensions about territorially and sectorial autonomy on the regional level, presented by King and Pierre are investigated in order to explain the different regionala organs functioning accordingly to these dimensions.The empirical material that have been analyzed is taken from 17 interviews, from government writings and reports from the SKL association, Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting, about the topic of regionalization and the effects and goals in Sweden.The conclusion of the material is that there is common opinion among the politicans about the goals of a region and also about which areas that can benefit the most from the perspective of beeing a region instead of a county council. When it comes to explaining the dimensions of territorially and sectorial autonomy the results have shown that the region has the most both territorially and sectorial autonomy, which is due to the regions rightfullness to taxation right, which is high in the region and ensured by a strong catchment area.

In Northen Bungoma, Western province ? Kenya, the Vi-Agroforestry Project (VI-AFP) has introduced a new project that covers 7000 households. To succeed with the project, a water resources protection project, agroforestry methods will be implemented to secure the water quality of the area. In this thesis a foundation is laid for future follow-up studies of land cover and land use of this area. To carry out this study an existing method from a cooperation between VIAFP and Dalarnas University (HDa) has been implemented.

Purpose: We have three purposes that will answer our problem questions. Our first purpose is to identify how diversification effects for investors changed between emerging markets and developed markets in the period 1996-2010. Our second purpose is to examine the two crises, IT and financial crisis, and if the correlations between these two crises have changed. Our third purpose is to examine to what extent the Swedish stock market was influenced by other markets in the period 1996-2010, the IT and financial crisis.Methodology: The method is based on an analytic model consisting of two tools; Regression- and Correlation analysis. The Regression analysis will be used when investigating if a change in a foreign stock market affects a change on the Swedish stock market.

AbstractThe purpose of my study was to examine how four social studies teachers in upper secondary school interprets the democratic educational mission and core values, and if they believe that the same values are tools to influence the students' democratic approach and if they think it is possible. It is also the study's minor purpose to make an analysis of my findings and previous research in the area to explain any similarities or differences in the social studies teacher's interpretation and practice of the democratic educational mission and core values. I used qualitative semi-structured interviews as a method in which the interview questions were based on my research questions. The two criteria I had for my sample of respondents was that there would be social studies teacher at a upper secondary school and that I wanted to have two of each sex. Their interpretation and how they think they practice the democratic educational mission and core values are similar.

The aim of the study was to examine how substance abuse influences social relationships to families, friends and others. Five ex addicts in a treatment centre were interviewed. We used thematic interviews with themes that we regarded as relevant for our study. In the analysis we applied the theoretical concept of symbolic interactionism. Theories of emotions also helped us to explain feelings that arise in the social relationships.

This study intends to examine teacher´s thoughts and perception of esthetic activities at preschools. I have chosen to restrict the esthetic area to the significance and function of clay to the teachers and children. On the basis of the belief that children can, and need access to a variety of ways to express themselves, we used the interviews to take part of teachers work and thoughts concerning clay, and the esthetic work. I have in this qualitative study addressed four questions: How do the teachers use clay in preschool activities? What do the teachers think about clay as a tool in the educational work at the preschool? Are the teachers working from the perception of children?s rights to express themselves in different ways and with the help of different tools? What function does clay fill for the children?I have interviewed eight teachers and taken part of both older and more recent theories around children and the creativity in esthetic contexts.

The aim of this master thesis?s is to examine what functions writing activities can have in the public library. Some public libraries offer their visitors writing activities, for example courses and camps. The public library is an institution with a particular identity, with special norms and properties which participants within the institution construct and reproduce. The main question of this thesis is to investigate how writing activities can be a part of the public library?s institutional identity and what functions writing activities in the public library can have.