AbstractThe overall purpose of this thesis was to investigate to what extent new research findings, in neuroscience and learning, may be useful in a school improvement context. In a qualitative interview study combined with questionnaire, we have investigated the approach to school improvement that exists in a municipality. Informants have been head teachers in preschool and primary school, special education teachers in a student health team and a development manager. The outcome of the study showed that all of the study participants, all of which have a formal mandated to work for school improvement occurs. It also shows that informants, according to their professional position, express different goals when relating to school improvement.

ABSTRACTEssay in Political Science, Advanced Continuation Course, 61-80 credits, by Jonas Nilsson?The democratic islamist? - a study of three islamist movements and their potential role in ademocratization process?Supervisor: Jonas LindeThe purpose of this work has been to explain to what extent islamist movements can be said to bebearers of democratic values and if they have a role to play in future democratization processes. Thepurpose of this work is also to examine the democratic views of the different islamist movements andto compare them with each other in an effort to find a specific islamist definition of democracy.The essay is a qualitative analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Front Islamique du Salut inAlgeria and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The analytical framework is based on the political institutionsincluded in Robert A. Dahl polyarchial democracy.

This thesis is based on the implementation of a bilateral rural development program in Burkina Faso. The main purpose of this study was to put the actual implementation process of a bilateral development program in view. This was done by investigating how two dominant perspectives in the implementation literature can explain what in fact happens during the realization of an aid program. A further aim of the thesis was to explore the limitations of these two dominant theories, in order to get a full understanding of the complexity of the realization of an aid program. Based on the implementation theory, this study shows that the realization of an aid program can be understood from three different angles.

The aim of this paper is to get a deeper understanding if research about international relations has any practical meaning. The main focal point is about the importance of the scholar idea soft power, and its meaning on foreign policy actions through expressions. A quantity and quality method is used. The point of the main theory that concerns international relations takes a rationalistic perspective, and expands it to the notion that ides can have an impact on policy outcomes. Three different types of research utilization can be traced to determine in which way an idea is getting implemented.

Title: When municipalities are keeping upAuthors: Hansson Käll, Ida; Jonasson, MikaelaTutor: Waks, CarolineCourse: Bachelor thesis, 15hp, Department of Business Studies, HT 2010Background: During the recent years social media has evolved into a powerful communicative medium. From an organizational standpoint social media has become a way for organizations to get closer to, and create a dialogue with, their environment. Swedish municipalities have began to use social media in their daily communication with the environment, but a problem has been raised about how public organizations should organize their social media when formal guidelines from the government are missing.Objective: The objective of this thesis is to examine how eight Swedish municipalities have organized their use of social media due to the lack of official guidance from the government, and also what difficulties that have occurred during this process.Method: The method used is qualitative with data collected through interviews with one respondent from each municipality.Results: The result show that the organizational solutions varies through each municipality but also the choice of social media. It has been important for municipalities to have someone in charge of the new communication tool since social media is a fast and communicative channel. Seven out of eight municipalities have already developed or are in process of developing their own formal guidelines on how to use social media.

This paper aims to investigate whether a small organization with small development teams can find a value in leaving a functioning development process to follow a formal systems development methodology, if these organizations can find support in an agile systems development method and in such case the method needs to be adjusted according to the organizations unique conditions.A traditional plan-driven system development methodology includes a number of phases that are carried out sequentially and a completed phase can basically not be resumed. All requirements are specified at the beginning of a project and at the end of the project only one delivery of software take place. This can cause difficulties in for example dealing with changing requirements. Agile system development methods intend to deal with changing requirements and to enable continuous delivery of valuable, working software.In this paper, both the traditional plan-driven methods and agile methods will be explained. Research methodology and existing system development theories will be discussed and a company where the study has been conducted will be presented.

Sweden is currently a country in which a large amount of children?s time has changed to be spent within institutions, for small children these institutions are preschools. These are places where notions are created regarding what children are, what?s good for children, what?s normal and desirable regarding children. The purpose of this study has been to decipher what?s considered desirable and what notions or ideas regarding children are prevalent in preschools with an I Ur och Skur profile.

AbstractA useful tool for companies to use in their differentiation process is proposed to be employee branding. Employee branding is developed and put forth by the management with the main task to formulate the brands vision and values, and communicate them to the employees. To promote the employee engagement and their relationship with the company, corporate storytelling can be applied, with is an internal communication that strengthens the internal rumour and values that represent the brand. Since engagement and motivation is important factors when creating a strong employee brand, there is a need for further research on how corporate storytelling is used by companies to influence employee engagement and motivation, as corporate storytelling leads to deeper commitment among employees.PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how companies use corporate storytelling to influence their employee branding.MethodologyThe authors conducted a qualitative case study on how the retail organization Boomerang. The empirical material was collected thru semi-structured interviews with Boomerangs management and employees.ConclusionThe conclusion shows that the employees prefers when corporate storytelling and various communication is put in context, this because it?s easier for the employees to understand.

The aim of this study is to examine how and in what way users of the public participate and affect the archival information that is to be preserved for the future through the examination of three archival projects involving public participation. The study seeks to examine if participation of the public could lead to increased democracy and diversity of information in the archives. The study will be performed through the examination of three participatory archives all tied to traditional archival institutions.The study is based on the theoretical framework of Benn and Gaus and their notions of public and private which they discuss using the key words access, agency and interest. The study also takes into consideration Laura Millar?s theories of social memory as a means for the public good.

The aim of this paper is to clarify the up till now somewhat shady definition of legitimacy, and to investigate what happens to this concept when it is transferred from the boundaries of the nation state to the realms of the international arena. By creating a model of legitimacy from which an institution can be evaluated, the purpose of this paper is to investigate what legitimacy is and how important it is for the actors within the international society. The next step involves evaluating what makes the UN a legitimate institution and how its foundation is affected by the blatant disregard of its authority by one of its? most influential members.The theoretical framework consists of a summary of what contemporary analysts? views of legitimacy are, which I have incorporated into my own institutional model of legitimacy. The role of institutions is central to all aspects of this study.

Objectives: The aim in this thesis has been to generate information relevant for strategic positioning and future evaluations within the scientific field of sport and exercise psychology. This has been done by request, and in collaboration with The Group of Sport and Exercise Psychology at the Institution of Psychology at the University of Umeå.Research questions:  (1) How does the cognitive structure within the field of sport and exercise psychology take shape with respect to research topics in current sport-psychological research, i.e. the research front? (2) How does the social structure within the field of sport and exercise psychology take shape with respect to formal scientific collaboration?Data: 879 articles published between 2008-2011 were used in this study. The population of articles were collected from a set of 5 core journals: International Journal of Sport Psychology, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, The Sport Psychologist, Psychology of Sport and Exercise.

This thesis discusses various approaches that venture capitalists have when evaluating investment prospects. The thesis is a case study of the business angel network Firm Factory Network. The empirical material is based on an extensive interview with Firm Factory CEO Daniel Kaplan. Our conclusion is that Firm Factory Network uses both informal and formal methods when they evaluate interesting prospects..

The purpose of the essay is to analyze the welfare state from a gender perspective. Further, the paper analyzes and critically examines three different normative solutions provided by Irish Marion Young, Nancy Fraser and Jürgen Habermas for the realization of a welfare state that includes women.Habermas argues that the welfare state has created a situation of dependency and state paternalism which reduces both individual and collective self-determination. Young follows Habermas? argument. She argues for a political climate where justice is reduced to the distribution of material goods rather than the elimination of underlying relations of domination and gender specific patterns.

Author: Niklas JohanssonDirector: Olle DuhlinTitle: In policy and practice ? a study of how the cultural policy have effected the language of two cultural institutions.Background: The swedish cultural policy?s raison d?être is to safeguard all the inhabitants right to experience culture. Since 1997 the development in the field has resulted in an economisation and commersialisation were the culture more commonly is looked upon as a mean of reaching a higher rate of employment or financial growth. The concept of cultural planning and new public management are today part of the cultural pollicy debate which in its turn has effected the goals and ways to evaluate fulfillment.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to show how the cultural policy in the swedish regions effect the language in the annual reports of the cultural institutions and how these documents have developed since 1997. This to further the knowledge of ho wchanges in the cultural policy effects the comunication of the cultural organisations.Method: This is a qulaitative study conducted in a inductivly.

The European Union is seen as democratic, and one of the criteria for a democratic decision process is that it must be fully transparent for the citizens. That is the only way for them to make their own decisions about political issues, and it is only possible as long as the citizens have access to relevant and reliable information. However, this is not always the case within the European Union, since it is often difficult to get a hold of different documents of the institutions, and since the civil servants to a great extent are forbidden to give away any information..