AbstractPurpose/Aim: My study aims to analyse, using Pierre Bourdieu´s theory, whether the social background plays a significant part in the attitudes and use of Apples mp3-player iPod. The study also aims to determine whether it is possible to group the focus groups used in my study and iPod into Bourdieu´s model.Material/Method: The reference material used in this paper is mainly gathered from books concerning Pierre Bourdieu´s theories. I have also had four focus groups of two different characters, to study their attitudes towards Apples mp3-player iPod. I have then applied the results of the focus groups to Bourdieu´s theories and models concerning habitus, social fields, capital and lifestyles, and studied whether there are any divergences in attitudes between the groups.Main results: My findings are that the focus groups as well as iPod can be put into Bourdieu´s model. According to the responses from the people in the focus groups, the attitude and usage of iPod do not mirror people?s social class or background, which goes against Bourdieu´s? theory.

University of ÖrebroDepartment of social SciencesSociology, Contnuation Course, 61-90hp.Essay 15hp. Spring 2008Title: Who is resbonsible? A soceityscientific discussion about burnout.Author: Emilie FuchsAbstractThe purpose with this essay is to do a critical comparation between two different perspectives, burnout as an individual problem and burnout as a social problem. The first perspective states that the individual itself is responsible for her sickness while the second perspective states that the society and foremost the labour market should work in order to prevent people from beeing burned out. With that purpose in mind I want to enlighten and hopefully bring up the topic for discussion.The essay is based upon the following questions:? How can you sociologically understand the labour market of today?? How can you understand burnout in an individual context?? How can you understand burnout in a social context?By studying and reading four books, I have presented the two different perspectives of burnout.

In Sweden approximately ten percent of all children grows up in a family where at least one parent is having an alcohol related addiction. Since 1998 the development of group activities for children in this situation has been immense. The aim of group activities is to break the child's isolation and make them feel that they are not lonely in their experiences, give them knowledge about addiction and relive the pressure of guilt and responsibility.In a comparative study we examined studied how two different group activity models one with the conception of illness and one without, use the children's network to support the group process. The aim was also to find each models definition of the "normal family", since we understood the groupactivity as a part in the normalization process. We reached our aim through interviews with group leaders and by literature studies.

This study was aimed to investigate why team sport coaches use group training as a part in their build-up training. Issues covered in this study are: "What motives have coaches in team sports that use group exercise as part of the build-up training?" and "What are the positive and negative aspects experienced trainers of using group exercise as part of build-up training in team sports?". It was a qualitative study, seven interviews were made with team sport coaches that has used group training as a type of exercise in their built-up training in collaboration with Friskvårdskompaniet. The results showed that the reasons why group exercise were used was different from coach to coach for example one motive was to increase the players physically ability.

The Northern Raccoon (Procyon lotor) belongs to the Carnivore-family and is a species endemic to North America. Every year hundreds of orphaned raccoon cubs are admitted into the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota (WRCM), a non-profit organization where all injured or orphaned wild animals are admitted and receive quality health care with the goal of being released out into the wild. The WRCM routinely vaccinate all of the admitted raccoon cubs with a killed feline panleucopenia vaccine, but despite this there are outbreaks of parvovirus infection every year where up to 50% of the admitted cubs have been euthanized or died. The objective of this study was to determine whether vaccinating the admitted raccoon kits has any significant protective effect to developing clinical parvoviral disease. A single-blinded cohort study was designed with two parallel, independent groups. One group was given a dose of killed feline parvovirus vaccine at admission, and the other group was not given any vaccination at all. Assignment to the vaccinated or unvaccinated group was on a per-litter basis and done randomly by drawing lots out of a box.

This study investigates the relationship strategies the group Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification holder has with the forest owners. The (FSC) standard enables an organization to manage a group of forest management units under a single certificate, a process referred to as group certification. Some certificate holders want a close relationship with the forest owner before they are offered to become part of their certificate. Other certificate holders have less strict demands on a close relationship with the forest owner before they are offered to become part of their certificate. The study shows that it is in many ways desirable to have a close relationship between forest owner and group certification holder..

The overall aim of the study was to give an insight into the life of a girl attending a program for preparation for further studies. More explicitly it is the aim of this study to examine what line the girls take to and how they experience support in school and if the offered support is adjusted to the needs of the girls?.To capture the complexity of the girls? experiences a world view approach was used. To be able to take part of the girls? experiences, a qualitative survey method was chosen, built upon individual half structured interviews with six girls attending the last year of upper secondary school.

Aim: Team spirit is a concept often used in both managerial literature and in other contexts where the efficiency of a group is discussed. Despite the fact that team spirit is used as a selling point for courses, books and seminars, no unambiguous definition of the term is available. The purpose of this thesis is to clarify what team spirit means to individuals within companies and team sports. Method: The thesis has been carried out using studies of available literature, which has been compiled into a conceivable model of what team spirit may imply. From this model a poll has been made, and handed out to individuals within companies as well as team sports. After having compiled the 37 replies, correlating answers has been sought after within each group of respondents. Result & Conclusions: The result shows us that there are varying opinions of what team spirit is, and generally accepted definitions of closely related ideas like cohesion and group development has to the respondents not been able to form a satisfying description of what team spirit means.

This study focuses on a cooperation (collaboration) project between municipalities social services and the regions psychiatric care. They will capture a client / patient group that often risks falling between the chairs, persons with a psychic disorder and a problem of substance abuse. The purpose of the study was to study the projects cooperation on its organizational level. The central questions of issue were: What is cooperation in the project? What view do the professionals have of the projects cooperation, and partly have on members of the client group persons with a psychic disorder and a problem of substance abuse? The study was implemented through participating observations on three meetings with the govern group, the project group and the POS-team and interviews with two representatives from each principal.

Sweden's school voucher reform has made the Swedish school system into one of the world's most liberalized. The debate concerning the ownership of Swedish schools is intense and the Swedish Minister of Education is open to restricting private equity owned companies from running schools. Interestingly, fewer calls are heard for restricting smaller profit-driven companies from owning schools. This essay aims to examine whether or not the quality of education provided by an individual school changes if it is acquired by a large private equity owned school group. This is done by conducting a comparative study on four independent schools recently acquired by AcadeMedia, Sweden's biggest private equity owned school group.

This thesis investigates and emphasises on the way students at Växjö police academy describe their socialization into their profession as police officers and the creation of profession identity. The scientist?s main questions are: In what way do the students at Växjö police academy describe their socialization process into the police profession? What role does the organisation play in the socialization process of the police students? How do the students develop their police identity? Which qualities are encouraged? The study is based on qualitative interviews with nine police students, performed in groups of three. Group theory, role theory, and organization theory are applied to the material to provide an understanding through which it is possible to understand the process of socialization. The study shows that there seems to be patterns in the description of a professional identity.

The aim of this essay has been to find out whether the individual development plan does make it easier to teachers to discover any needs of the students to get education or material changes and by that make adjustments in the classroom. I chose to seek information by interviewing special educators at four compulsory schools, since they have an overall apprehension of how the work is carried out at the school, especially the work with students in need of any form of extra support.All students at the Swedish compulsory school shall have an individual development plan. The purpose with the plan is, besides that the student is to be given possibilities to form his own pedagogical and social goals, that the teacher shall get early signals if a student may be in need of getting education and materials changed and adjusted for to easier manage his studies. The individual development plan of the student should have the function as a tool to the teacher to facilitate for his students.The answer of my question can be sum-up in a no, the inherent potential in the individual development plan is not utilized by the teachers that seem to have the apprehension that the plan is for the student all by him/herself. The teaching staff has obviously not understood the use they can get out of it. .

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to examine the process of resocialization for individuals who previously lived as criminals from an individual perspective. The research questions for the essay are: How do individuals in the study describe their process of resocialization? In which way does a support organization affect the process of resocialization for the individual? In which ways do the reactions from society affect the process of resocialization for the individual?To answer these research questions a qualitative method was chosen where six narrative interviews was conducted with men who previously lived as criminals but have been resocialized into society. These men are roughly between the ages of 30-60 years and are all members of a support organization for ex criminals.The results show that the process is divided in four stages and that the support organization has facilitated the process of resocialization of the respondents. Reactions from society both facilitates change using the help of different agencies can contribute, while negative reactions from other individuals makes change difficult.

AimThe aim with this study was to acquire knowledge of mental training and if you can use it in the elementary school to increase in a short period of time the performance in a coordination test. Furthermore we wanted to investigate teachers understanding of the possibilities to perform this kind of training in the elementary school, and if there is support for this in the school regulation.MethodAs method we have used a combination of a literature pre-study, interview and at the end an experiment. Before the experiment and interviews could take place we studied literature about mental training to get a basic knowledge of the subject. The facts we learned from our pre-study and interviews gave us the base for our experiment. The experiment group included 23 pupils in a third class at school situated in Stockholm.

Individual identification of pigs could be used in commercial herds for production monitoring, disease monitoring and breeding evaluation. This study investigates the possibility of using microchips designed for dogs and cats to identify individual pigs from birth, through rearing to carcass at the slaughter plant. Two different sizes of microchips, and two different ages of the pigs at injection were tested. Castrates and gilts from ten litters were evenly distributed between chip sizes and injection ages. All pigs were identity marked with both electronic ear tags and injected with microchips.