It's an everyday experience shared by many that nature can be of help in relieving pain, reducing stress, support mental recovery etc. In the last three decades or so this experience has also found support in a large number of scientific investigations. Among other things the experience of nature has been shown to reduce stress and pain in patients and to boost concentration and reduce impulsive behavior in children. Most of this research however has mainly been concerned with the visual modality. In this thesis the aim has been to focus on the auditory modality in this context by trying to reveal some effects on people from the exposure of nature sounds played indoors in three different environments: a grammar school class room, a kindergarten play room and a post-surgery wake up room at an intensive care unit.

This master?s thesis investigates in which ways students seek out and access their textbooks and how they use their university?s library in this process. Data is collected through interviews from six students several semesters into their studies at the University of Stockholm. For the interviews two students each were selected from the fields of law, economics and humanities. The empirical findings were analyzed using T.D Wilson?s model of information behavior (1997).

The goal with this thesis was to look at various aspects of how teachers and students perceived the use of various texts in the collective teaching context in which they are participants. The purpose with that was to provide insight into aspects of the didactic processes that the texts and the usage of them are part of and demonstrate aspects of both the conditions and the opportunities for teaching conducted within the surveyed education. The essay analysis is based on interviews with four teachers and twelve students in a total of four teaching contexts (within subjects: Swedish and SO/Religion) about texts they worked with during a selected period of work.The essay is based on a theory of Kathleen MacCormick and Torlaug Hoel Lökkengaard where reading and writing are described as both an individual cognitive process and a common cultural process, impossible to completely separate from each other. The students description of their use of the texts show how they are influenced by teachers culture of teaching, in turn, influenced by the curriculum. In relation to Wiksten Folkeryd, af Geijerstam and Edling research on students movability in texts in the Swedish school, the survey shows some of the aspects that enable students to develop a higher level of movability in texts within the subject Swedish.

The purpose of this study is to analyse and describe social work students? view on a person with self-injurious behaviour and the following issues. The aim and focus is on the general depiction. The theoretical perspectives have been intersectionality and its focus on social constructivism, and gender perspectives. The method was semi-structured interviews with eight social work students at Linnaeus University Kalmar.

This thesis is based on a conversation about gender identity and the pronoun hen in an episode of the radio programme Tendens on Swedish public radio, P1. The participants of the conversation are a scholar and a journalist/show-host. The goal of the research has been to analyse how the conversation is constructed from its context and which topics that occur. The goal of the research has also been to analyse how the participants of the conversation position themselves and how the conversation composes and re-composes norms and values regarding gender identity in society. Critical discourse analysis, completed by Conversation analysis has been the theoretical and methodological approach.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine research perspectives and a selection ofmanagers? views on the concept of work motivation. With an exploratory approach,based on a literature review and interviews these views are examined and compared inrelation to a theoretical framework. This theoretical framework consists of three keyconcepts, the individual, the context and the regulation of work motivation. Theliterature review reveals two research perspectives, a classic economic perspectivebased on Principal?Agent Theory and a more up to date social psychologicalperspective based on Self-Determination Theory.

This essay is dealing with the question of the possibility for a non archaeologist to learn something about the Scandinavian Bronze Age by reading novels taking place in the specific period. I have studied novels written by Scandinavian writers between 1980 and present. Before I started I constructed nine different categories that I was to look for in the novels. The categories were constructed in the aim to get as a complete picture as possible of the Bronze Age society. The results were then compared to archaeological evident and theories and discussed in terms of this connection.

When being in preschool, I have come across children who I have had difficulties to really meet, and I have felt that the communication between me and the child has been deficient. Since I believe that the meeting of child and pedagogue is essential to learning and development, I find this an important subject of further study.The purpose of my study is to investigate if, and how, teachers regard a possible connection between language capability and behaviour. Furthermore I investigate how they work with language acquisition and communication, and what argument the pedagogues have for this work.To answer these questions I have interviewed two pedagogues who have great knowledge and experience of this subject, and also have special interest in children?s language and communication.In my literary review I give an account of how language acquisition is described in literature, and then compare it with how language impairment reveals. I also describe earlier research on how to work with language development, and what the national curriculum for preschools (Lpfö 98) say on this topic.The result shows that my informants divide in their view of how to connect language capability to behaviour.

This paper aims to describe and elaborate on a recent discursive change within the new-age movement. Since the seventies and the publishing of speculative popular science books like The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra and The self-aware universe by Amit Goswami, the idea that quantum physics resonates with spirituality has become the topic of hundreds of books and movies.The quantum-spiritual discourse has three distinct ways to approach quantum physics in its discussion on spirituality: The parallelistic approach which emphasizes the similarities between eastern philosophies and modern physics, the monistic-idealistic approach which tells us that mind is the foundation of matter and the scientific spiritual approach which tries to explain spiritual claims scientifically. In the quantum-spiritual discourse, quantum physical phenomena (e.g. non-locality and entanglement) are being called upon to validate metaphysical statements. The primary assumption of the discourse is that the shift of paradigm due to the establishment of modern physics also is a shift of paradigm of spirituality.With the object to examine the common claims made in the discourse, cross-references between spiritual arguments and facts of quantum physics are being made.

During the latest 50 years, the Swedish porcelain tableware industry has gone from being rather successful to experience significant problems. Our empirical study attributes these problems to underlying changes in consumer buying behaviour, whereas current generation theory supports our findings. The younger generation has significantly different preferences compared to older generations, with less focus on quality and more focus on variability, and there is reason to believe that these findings also are applicable to other consumer purchases. The successful porcelain companies of tomorrow will be the ones that continuously can adapt to these and further changes in consumer buying behaviour..

The aim of this research is to evaluate whether the social environment of Swedish high school students affects their views on the multicultural society. The research material was collected through the use of two focus groups containing high school students from two different schools, one group is used to a multicultural social environment while the other group is used to a less multicultural social environment. With the researcher acting as a moderator in the focus groups, the students discussed different questions regarding multiculturalism, gender equality and religion. The theory that this research is based on suggests that the social environment and the social capital affects the students views on the multicultural society. The results of the research were evaluated and connected to the theory.

The purpose of this study was to find out what thoughts some preschool teachers had about gender andgender work. The aim was also to investigate whether preschool educational orientation had any impacton how teachers thought about gender and gender work.The scientific method for the study was qualitative research interviews. The interviews were conductedindividually with four preschool teachers from two different preschools. The first preschool was agender-oriented school and the other was a non-gender-oriented school.The results of the study show preschool teachers have good knowledge of gender and gender work andwhat they mean in preschool, and this is regardless of the pedagogical approach the preschool they?reworking for has.

Aim: The aim of this study is to describe which messages and by which rhetorical means were communicated in political TV-advertisement in Finland and Sweden. The study also aims to analyze how the rhetorical choices were influenced by the political and social context in these countries.Material: Two TV-commercials from the latest parliamentary elections in each country were chosen. The leading left-wing and right-wing parties were chosen from each country.Theoretical perspective: This study is based on theories on political parties? vote maximization and the development of the modern electoral campaign.Methodology: The method used in this study is rhetorical analysis.Results: All commercials had similar themes and were characterized by a low level of conflict. This is related to the common Nordic context in the two countries.

A common form of communication within Facebook is the communication between users via status updates. If you write a status update all your friends have the opportunity to read and to respond to the update. The overall issue of this survey is: how are Facebook users to commu- nicate with status updates?  The survey aims to gain insight and greater understanding of communication patterns and user awareness of social contexts when they write status  updates. The study will act as an attempt to understand a small part of a complex interaction taking place in a social situation.

The aim of this study is to investigate leadership in sports organizations and business organizations. The study focused on common and important leadership components and the most important leadership processes in both business context and sports context. The study also investigated common and important leadership components, leadership challenges and which degree leaders used the transformative leadership. The study focuses on leadership components most importantly from the leaders view, including both sport managers and business leaders. The investigation was based on eight interviews, which are analyzed with content analysis.