The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of how medium-sized construction companies adapt and how they choose to reorganize their operations in relation to the recession. The study has as its theoretical starting point theories about organizational learning, the impact of the economy on construction companies and strategies for dealing with recessions. The method used to conduct the study was semi-structured interviews with representatives from 15 different construction companies. The results of the study show that they used several strategies to adapt and reorganize the business in accordance with the recession. Some construction companies had to make cost savings as a result of the recession.

This paper intends to examine how parents think and reflect on gender issues when they borrow books for their children at the library. The theory applied is Yvonne Hirdman?s theory of a gender system. A questionnaire was made available at the Children's department of Uppsala City Library in February, 2010. The material was compiled and analyzed with the intention to try to detect trends, patterns and themes, rather than statistics and hard data.Parents in the study perceive themselves as gender-conscious.

The purpose of our study is to examine whether stress among social workers is present, and ifso, what strategies they and their supervisors use to manage work-related stress. The study isbased on a qualitative method. The data consist of interviews, with six social workers andthree supervisors. The study?s theoretical framework is based on KASAM, SOC-sense ofcoherence by Antonovsky, demand- control- support model by Karasek & Theorell, stresstheory by Hans Selye and coping strategies by Lazarus.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how Ranma ½, one of the most popular Japanese Manga series, reflects the gender system in society. We have chosen to make use of two different gender theorists to determine if Ranma ½ follows the gender norms of society or not. The theoretical framework is based primarily on Yvonne Hirdman's theory of the two basic principles: the principle of dichotomy and the principle of hierarchy. Judith Butler's theory of performative gender is used as a complement.

The elderly care is an area of great importance to women. Women are more often in need of elderly care; they work with the service and provide a majority of the informal service. Research shows that managers? work-related prerequisites are significantly different between the male dominated technical administration and the female dominated care and educational administration. Studies also show that what the highest managerial organisation gives priority to, often permeate the whole organisation.

The purpose of the study has been to recognise good development and the factors behind this development. We have chosen an aid-project co-financed first by the Swedish government and later by the government of Great Britain for our study. One of the conditions for good development, according to our chosen theory Another development, is peoples participation. To study good development and peoples participation we conducted a Minor Field Study (MFS) in Rajasthan in the north-west of India in June-August 2001. We had a hermeneutic approach and consequently accomplished interviews and participant observations in the Lok Jumbish project in Rajasthan.

The aim of this essay is to examine how gender is described in pictures in textbooks used in swedish upper secondary school. The research question is: How is gender being potrayed in the pictures of new age in the textbook in relation to traditional dichothomy, hierarchy and detraditionalization? The material used in this study consists of five textbooks in religion used for education in upper secondary schools in Sweden. In total, 18 pictures from these books that describe new age, constitutes the subject of analysis. The method used is picture analysis.

The purpose of this essay was to explore how the concept of gender identity is constructed, by doing a discourse analysis of texts from two different perspective discussing intersexuals, and to define the areas where the discourses doesn't agree. The two perspectives were; feminist- and medical perspective.How are sex/gender identity constructed in the chosen articles?What themes can be seen in the discourses?My method was discourse analysis. A discourse can be described as a way of talking about and understanding a part of the world. The analytics task is to define the discourses, which the world is constructed by.The areas of conflicts have been found.

The aim of this study is to investigate how preschool teachers reason about gender stereotypical and gender neutral toys and other material. I would also like to see how the pedagogues reason about gender segregation when it comes to toys. To investigate the issue, I have interviewed three pedagogues from different preschools. The results showed that the work procedures differed a bit from school to school, although they all wanted to achieve the same goal. A goal that our curriculum mention as well: Not to make a difference between boys and girls.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how gender and sexuality are made in the videogames Prince of Persia and Fable II, and more specifically to look at possibilities and limitations for the construction of gender and sexuality in these games. I understand videogames as an interactive media form that differs from other types of media like film and literature. It is a media form that depends on a player to be played. At the same time it is constituted by rules of how it can be played. I have analyzed my material by a method called close-playing.

The aim of this study was to describe how male social workers who work in the section for children and family in one municipality in southern Sweden, experience that their gender influences their daily work. The main focus is to understand what it means to be a man in the social services department. The first research question was how the male social workers experienced how their gender influenced their contact with children and parents in terms of possibilities and obstacles. The second research question was how the male social workers experienced how their gender influenced their working place in terms of possibilities and obstacles. The third research question was how the male social workers experienced that their gender affected the work with women colleagues.

In this paper an upper level compulsory school is examined from a gender perspective. The purpose of the paper is to analyse how girls and boys acquire space in the classroom (during a Swedish lesson) and in the sports hall (during a lesson in physical education). To fullfil the purpose of this paper a seventh grade class was observed during a lesson in Swedish as well as in sports. In addition to this on pupil was interviewed. In this paper the results are compared to and measured against results from earlier research in the field. Used as a theoretical basis are Simone de Beauvoir?s theories on gender.The results attained indicate that girls and boys claims space in different ways during time in the classroom as well as in the sports hall.

Abstract The purpose of this degree project is to examine what impact working with physical objects has on children?s learning process concerning addition. We want to explore what addition strategies can be exercised using the game ?Twice as much?. We have observed children in school year 1.

Problem statement: Nowadays, women have a greater place in literature, both as a writer but also the role of the book and that is why I have chosen to examine how educators reason about their use of literature in preschool to combat the stereotype of gender roles.Motivation: An earlier survey shows that women now have a greater place in the recently released children's literature and, therefore, it is interesting to see how educators see their work on countering gender patterns using picture books. It is also interesting to examine whether the female roles in the books are consistent with the research I've used.Approach: I chose to use qualitative interviews with teachers in two preschools and also examined the recently released children?s books they worked with.Results: The results of my survey shows that teachers thoughts about their work on combating gender pattern occurs on an individual plan and depend on how the teacher interprets the guidelines. My survey also shows that the gender roles in the newly released picture books are consistent with earlier research I?ve used.Conclusion: It is therefore important that educators are aware of how easily gender patterns are induced, it happens on a daily basis through words and expectations that educators have on children..

The first aim of the thesis is to analyse the problems of trust, according to game theory, in the Russian market for private pensions insurance. The second aim is to find suitable strategies to solve the problems. Problems of trust have arisen because, (i) buyers of insurance have had negative experiences when dealing with insurance companies and corruption has decreased trust for all players in the market, (ii) incomplete information makes it difficult to separate honest actors from dishonest, and (iii) dishonest insurance companies do not get punished because of corruption and weaknesses in the law. Mutual risk-sharing is a potential solution as necessary conditions already exist in the Russian society. There are groups who (i) share the same type of risks, (ii) are aware of moral hazards, and (iii) are able to control each other.