This essay examines the using of consensus method for decision making within the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the process that led to the decision to adopt its usage. The main question of my essay is why the method was introduced to the WCC and what motives lay behind its introduction. Other questions are how the consensus method works; both in theory and in practice, and what the predecessors and prototypes for the method are.The consensus method belongs to a broad Christian tradition of spiritual discernment and spiritual decision making. The New Testament, in particular Acts, gives examples of decision making in the early church which show that discerning God's will was considered essential. However the most influential model for the consensus method have been the decision making process of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers, and also the consensus model of the Uniting Church in Australia.

Many studies have been conducted of different types of business networks in recent years. Despite this, there is a lack of research concerning industry-transcending formal networks which are limited to a specific region. We have conducted a case study of Örebro Promotion, which is an industry-transcending network including over 500 members. Örebro is a medium-sized city in the middle of Sweden. The purpose with our study is to create an understanding of why enterprises choose to be a part of the network and what they feel is the gain of their membership.

The purpose of this study is to examine the actual political conditions that exist for the Iranian women. What is the political reality of the Iranian women and how can they exert political influence within the political system that exists in Iran today. This is done to see how the Iranian women's potential political influence affects Iran's democratic status. This will be answered through the overall research question: What opportunities do the Iranian women have to influence policy? This overall question is then split into three smaller research questions:1) What formal possibilities to political influence do the Iranian women have?2) What real possibilities to political influence do the Iranian women have?3) How have women in Iran tried to exert political influence outside the institutional framework?This will be done through a qualitative text analysis where texts concerning the Iranian women?s political influence are examined.

Denna studie inriktar sig på pedagoger som arbetar medvetet med sin matematikundervisning i förskolan och skolan. Vi använder begreppet matematikande som står för all den verksamhet som innehåller matematik i alla dess former. Frågeformuleringarna är fokuserade på hur pedagoger tänker om grundläggande matematikkunskaper, arbetssätt och arbetsformer samt dokumentation. Studien bygger på sex kvalitativa intervjuer. Urvalet av pedagogerna har gjorts utifrån vetskapen om att de har satsat aktivt på sin matematikundervisning.

This study rises up an untouched area of ??research where the relationship between newly arrived parents and teachers is examined from a structural perspective. Previous research has looked only at the interaction between parents and teacher; this study is thus a theoretical contribution to the research. The aim of the study is met by examining the perceptions newly arrived parents have of their meeting with the Swedish school, the relationship with their children?s teacher, cooperation, collaboration between home and school, as well as their own influence in their children's learning.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the arrival of class society is expressed in the social dance of high society during the second half of the eighteenth century. The study is based on the idea that culture and society develope in interaction; that changes in the economic, political and social life determine the cultural expressions as well. What I wish to examine is whether cultural themes from the developing bourgeois culture ? individualism, to be precise ? is expressed in the social dance during the second half of the eigthteenth century. // The study shows that public balls definitely gave people a chance to show off on the dance floor in spite of social rank.

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.

The purpose of this essay is to examine when teachers choose to discuss mathematics withstudents rather then just talk about mathematics. A definition where used to distinguish betweenan interaction that is not a discussion and an interaction that is a discussion. This definition hasbeen created by drawing ideas from other works into making a quite simple definition whichtherefore is easy to observe. The discussions are also separated into two different kinds ofdiscussions. The first and most common category of discussion are one where only imitativereasoning is used.

The aim of this study is to investigate into the use of discussions in the classroom to help the pupils develop a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts and operations. The empirical data contain interviews with two teachers and observations from their lessons. The purpose of the interviews was to find out what importance the teachers ascribed to the ability of their pupils to talk about mathematics, and how they organised their classes to encourage mathematical discussions. With the observations, I was able to see the interaction in the classroom and hear discussions between the teacher and the pupils, as well as between the pupils themselves.The interviewed teachers proved to share my own belief in the results of researchers like Malmer (1999) and Löwing (2006) about the importance of verbal discussion, argumentation and reflection during mathematics classes. But convictions derived from the research of others are one thing, the practical application of the wisdom in the classroom another.

Recently I discovered that preschool education has evolved from integration of various subject contents and working methods. The purpose of my study is to investigate preschool teachers' attitudes and ways of working with a theme-oriented approach. I also want to examine their opinions regarding the integration of subject content in terms of mathematics and science subjects (NO) in preschools theme-oriented work approach.My questions for this study are:What is a preschool teacher's attitude and their ways of working to a thematic-oriented approach?What is a preschool teacher's opinions regarding the integration of subject content, especially in mathematics and science subjects (NO) in their pre-schools theme-oriented work approach?I have used myself a qualitative method of investigation to produce materials for my research project. I collected my empirical material for my study from the semi-structured interviews that was done with four preschool teachers in two preschools in Botkyrka municipality.

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.

SvenskaDetta är en kvalitativ studie som är baserad på semistrukturerade intervjuer. Syftet med detta arbete är att ta reda på hur två matematiklärare och en specialpedagog ser på/beskriver matematik­svårigheter och hur de arbetar med elevernas matematiksvårigheter som de upp­täcker hos sina elever. Jag är väldigt intresserad av att höra vilka matematik­svårigheter och orsaker till matematiksvårigheter lärarna ser hos sina elever samt lära mig hur skolan och lärarna jobbar med dessa svårigheter hos eleverna. Samtliga informanter hade samma svar på mina forskningsfrågor. I resultaten av hela min studie har jag kommit fram till att orsaker till elevernas matematiksvårigheter bland annat är: dåliga baskunskaper, låga baskunskaper förståelse av positionssystem samt begrepp.

I vilken grad ett barn är fonologiskt medvetet är i många fall avgörande för hur barnets läsinlärning kommer att fortlöpa, varför det är av stor vikt att redan tidigt arbeta för att stärka den fonologiska medvetenheten. En tillfredsställande läsförmåga är central för inlärningen även i andra skolämnen än svenska. Forskning har på senare tid visat att det finns ett tydligt samband mellan läs- och skrivsvårigheter och svårigheter i matematik. I denna studie undersöks huruvida det finns någon koppling mellan tidiga fonologiska svårigheter och matematiksvårigheter två år senare hos en grupp elever. Med kvantitativa metoder och genom analyser av bedömningar i olika diagnos- och kartläggningsmaterial har ett resultat kunnat presenteras som visar att majoriteten av de elever som i förskoleklassen uppvisade tecken på fonologiska svårigheter även hade matematiksvårigheter i år 2.

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.

SvenskaDetta är en kvalitativ studie som är baserad på semistrukturerade intervjuer. Syftet med detta arbete är att ta reda på hur två matematiklärare och en specialpedagog ser på/beskriver matematik­svårigheter och hur de arbetar med elevernas matematiksvårigheter som de upp­täcker hos sina elever. Jag är väldigt intresserad av att höra vilka matematik­svårigheter och orsaker till matematiksvårigheter lärarna ser hos sina elever samt lära mig hur skolan och lärarna jobbar med dessa svårigheter hos eleverna. Samtliga informanter hade samma svar på mina forskningsfrågor. I resultaten av hela min studie har jag kommit fram till att orsaker till elevernas matematiksvårigheter bland annat är: dåliga baskunskaper, låga baskunskaper förståelse av positionssystem samt begrepp.