A qualitative study is presented concerning children?s participation in the local decisionmaking in Swedish municipalities. The study also aims at finding out what are considered to be successful factors and obstacles connected to the implementation of children?s participation in local decision-making. The study contains a summary of the convention on the rights of the child, focusing on article 12, as well as previous research findings concerning children?s participation and factors enabling respectively hindering participation.

The purpose of this research is to identify how E-NGO and forest stakeholders, in the study referred to as non-state actors, have influenced the EU timber regulation; through participation and lobbyism towards the decision- makers (policy makers) at EU and national level, to achieve adjustments in the legislative text. The study also examines the relationships between the forest stakeholders, the E-NGOs and the EU-institutions, regarding communication, cooperation, informal and formal consultation where interviews were accomplished with decision-makers from the EU-institutions, forest stakeholders, E-NGOS and representatives from Swedish authorities that participated under the development of the EUTR during the period of 2008-2013. The participation and lobbying from non-state actors have most likely affected the outcome of the regulation, through alterations in the legislative text and through influencing the EU-institutions. Several factors that have affected the efficiency and timing of the influence have been identified through interviews as well as various approaches to influence the decision makers. The findings of the study may be useful for forest related interest groups that are involved in decision-making procedures at EU-level and as substance and material for further research in the subject of forest policy making at supranational level..

The purpose of this study is to contribute with new knowledge of  how Talent Management can be seen as a an opportunity or threat for organizational development, concerning competence, on the basis of HR. The research questions asked are: Out of wich aspects can Talent Management be seen as an opportunity or threat on the basis of HR-employees? How can it affect the work of HR? To answer these questions qualitative interviews with five employees within HR from four different companies has been executed. The essay has been investigated on the basis of an explorative aim and with a qualitative method. The empirical results has indicated common themes such as director support, HRs view of Talent Management, HRs development and shifts of generations.

The aim of the study was to examine the competence of dental hygienists among Clinic Director´s within the Public Dental Service and Private dentists in the county of Skåne . The study was quantitative and consisted of an electronic questionnaire sent out to all Clinic Directors in the county of Skåne. A total of five hundred and thirty eight questionnaires were sent out. The inclusion criteria were the Clinic directors who employed dental hygienists who had obtained their professional degree during the last four years. Twenty nine Clinic directors responded to the study.The results showed that in general clinic directors are pleased and feel that dental hygienists are proficient in periodontology and dental caries diagnostics.

The purpose with this final paper was to examine how the collaboration between parents and teachers can manifest itself. With collaboration, we mean the dialogue that has to exist between parents and teachers in regards to e.g. how well informed the parents are about the regulated principles on which the education plan is built on, and in which way they can take part in and influence the system. This is to empathize on the fact that a good collaboration between parents and teachers help create a good foundation for the pupil?s ability to learn.The method that we have used are questionnaires given to parents and teachers along with studies of literature both as means of furthering our studies as well as a basis for the design of the questionnaires.

This examination studies the gender balance of contemporary art exhibitions in Sweden. To what extent genders are equally represented assumes to be based on how the curating process considers equality work. Three categories of art organisations are studied with the intention to determine differences in equality approach between the categories. Official documents of each organisation are examined to understand how they formally relate to equality work. Statistics of the actual gender balance of each organisation are produced based on the last two years exhibition archives.

This paper emphasizes that the analyzing and the intepretation of images, involves anholistic view, including intention, content, message, and the influence on the observer.The paper focuses on daily produced images. The starting point of this paper is ´image´in the concept of ´the written image´. The theory- and method textcritical perspective.used in this paper is close connected to Paul Feyerabends, Against Method, and toRobert Farrells work Feyerabend and Scientific Values. This papers specific ques-tionsare, 1) is analyzing and intepretation of images, subjective ?, 2) needs the subjectivityto be handled to limit arbitrariness and distortion ?, 3) is it appropriate to use a filterof awarerness as an aid to handle the subjectivity ? The answear to the threequestions, is short and clear: ?Yes?.

Title: A study about conditions for leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Authors: Cecilia Ekström and Niklas SandbergKeywords: Leadership, knowledge-intensive firm, hierarchies, followers.Background: Leadership is becoming one of our greatest social myths and is considered a total solution for many problems that occur in an organization. The view of leadership is usually from a top-down perspective, which contributes to an often underestimated view of the follower. Just as it is important to understand the leader's view of leadership, it is important to understand how employees view the structure from which the leader derives its legitimacy. The existing conditions in knowledge-intensive firms, such as autonomy, place special demands on the formal leadership.Purpose: The purpose of this study takes an employee perspective, to understand what the conditions are for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Method: A qualitative research method was used and empirical material was collected through interviews with employees in knowledge-intensive firms. The empirical material was analyzed by the respondents? mental images which were set against the theoretical framework of the thesis.Conclusions: The conditions for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms make it advantageous to have a leader with a withdrawn role.

Previous research has established coaches' important role in developing elite athletes (Durand, Bush, Thomson & Salmela 1996). Athlete enhancement and assisting athletes achieve ?peak performance? has been a major objective for elite coaches as well as sports scientists (Williams & Kendall, 2007) Despite this common goal, research also question whether sports scientists and the research they pursue really effects coaches knowledge and constitute a foundation for today and tomorrows athletic performances (Bishop 2008).  This study examined elite coaches? needs and use of sport science research as well as the interaction between elite coaches and sport scientists. Following interviews of ten elite coaches, content analysis revealed that sport science is both a formal and informal resource of knowledge for coaches. Development of athletes is seen as the main objective of research retrieval and personal and/or direct contact with the sport scientist is considered to be the best way to assemble.

Making decisions have always been part of human life. Political decisions consist of many participants with both formal and informal ways to highlight problems and reach the political agenda. Processes difficult for an individual to distinguish and understand surround political decision-making. The purpose of this study is to investigate the decision process for a specific political issue, Swedish wine producers' desire to be able to sell their own wine at their vineyard; gårdsförsäljning. This is currently prohibited in the Swedish model due to an alcohol monopoly.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute with knowledge regarding the connection between the socialization process and the organizational commitment perceived by junior accountants. Based on Van Maanen and Schein's (1979) model, we intend to identify and describe how selected socialization strategies affect junior accountants? perceived affective, continuous and normative commitment during the initial five years in the firm.Research methodology: Semi-structured interview was chosen as the key approach for gathering essential data. Interviews were conducted at three major accounting firms with a total of eight interview participants. The study has a qualitative approach because of the ability to go in depth on the studied phenomenon.Conclusion: The socialization process consists of individual, informal, sequential, fixed, serial, and investiture strategies.

Background: Good health at community and individual levels are key policy priorities. These priorities can be shown through supporting parents about various different healthy lifestyle choices. In order to know where interventions are needed, it is of interest to study how parents generally feel and how they perceive their parenting.Aim: To study how parents rate their own health and parenting skills, and examine whether there is any correlation between perceived general health and perceived parental competence.  Further, this study will show whether there is a correlation between rate of perceived general health and rate of perceived parental competence when it comes to gender.Method: 64 questionnaires were collected at strategic open kindergartens in the municipality of Uppsala. The questionnaires were distributed to the parents present and who chose to participate in this study.Main result: The result of this study shows that parents have a high rate of general health.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the levels of social distance used by the librarians and users in the virtual reference interview. With a conversational analysis and applied politeness theory 49 chat transcripts where analysed in order to answer the question of how the interlocutors positioned themselves regarding the social distance between them. By identifying what communicative strategies where used the following results were found. Generally the social distance between librarians and users is low in the Swedish virtual reference interview. Even though both parties used informal and casual language the results indicate that the librarians face wants were valued slightly higher than the users which were illustrated by a some what higher social distance in the stages of the conversations when the librarians face was under most threat.

This paper conducts a qualitative examination based on interviews with four high school librarians. The purpose is to illustrate their professional role in proportion to that of the teachers from working with students? reading comprehension and from their role, if any, in the school?s educational activity. The work is based on the following questions:- How does the high school librarian describe his or her work to increase the students' reading comprehension and contribute to their reading development?- How does the high school librarian describe his or her involvement in the schools? educational activity?- How can one understand the high school librarians' relation to the teachers with reference to the librarians? jurisdiction and the formal and actual legitimacy of the school library profession?The theoretical framework constitutes of the concept of jurisdiction and of formal and actual legitimacy.

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study was to ascertain whether there was any interest among dental hygienists, raising their level of competence throught attending additional courses or gaining further qualifications. The study was carried out by sending out two-hundred questionarires to randomly chosen dental hygienists. After one remainder come the answer frequency up to 66%. The study shows that many of the dental hygienists are interested to study at college. Many wanted raising level of comtpetence by education, wich also the study shows.