The aim of our study is to explore the empowerment process among micro-business owners in Kayamandi, a black township of Stellenbosch in South Africa. What are the positive and negative implications for the empowerment process? Another aim is to find out the role of local and international support in this process. The theoretical framework of this study revolves around the concepts of gender, power and empowerment. Our methods are qualitative interviews and observations.

The aim of this study is to shed light on the phenomenon of destructive sexual behavior among youth from the perspective of professionals working at nonprofit organizations. To examine this, we used a qualitative method; we interviewed professionals working at nonprofit organizations. To analyze our results we used gender theory and empowerment theory. Our main results are that the professionals view this behavior as deliberate self-harm, such as cutting, as they do it to achieve relief from anxiety. Also, the professionals think that gender norms affect young people with destructive sexual behavior in that it imposes guilt and shame, which inflicts their already low self-esteem and makes them feel inferior.

The Swedish society has trough decades developed into a multicultural society. Minority groups such as Sami have been a part of the country for a long time. By being separated from the majority through culture, language etc. minorities demand the right to become independent and have the ability to practice their culture. History show that minorities all over the world have been discriminated and abused by the majorities. Democratic procedures are often advantages for the majority.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the success of theconcept of empowerment in the field of social science can be explained by referring to it as the new paradigm replacing the former paternalistic era. Therefore, I investigate if the character of its history, domicile and practice has the same distinguishing features as the scientific progress. The analysis is based on Thomas Kuhn's definition of a scientific paradigm through the concepts of consensus, crisis and revolution. I also look for alternative ways to explain the sudden appearance of empowerment at the world agenda. Due to the lack of a uniform definition of the concept and the absence of common approaches in the stimulation of empowerment it's difficult to argue that the situation is marked by consensus.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate whether publiclibraries language cafés can support or enable the empowerment of the participants. Empowerment means that the individuals ability to take control of their own lives is strengthened and that the individual becomes more independent. Empowerment also means that the individual takes part in a community. An important part of this is the language. I have developed two research questions: What forms of empowerment can be seen in the respondents' statements? What role do language cafés play for people from other countries, in terms of empowerment? The thesis empirical material consists of interviews whit five people involved in different languages cafes in public libraries in the city of Malmö.

The aim of this essay is to problematize the role of living support in a group home and to examine staff reflections about the users' opportunities for and possibly limits to self determination and, in addition to this, how they work towards supporting this right. The study is conducted through seven semi-structured qualitative interviews. The theoretical points of departure are theories of empowerment and paternalism. We have analysed the study results from the vantage point of these theories. The results are consistent with earlier research showing lack of guidance for supporters and also a lack of common approach towards users..

Service quality occurs in service encounters where both customers and employees come together in an interaction. It is therefore important that the staff give their best because the interaction usually takes place in real time, which is referred to as the moment of truth.The aim of this study was to find out how luxury hotels are working to ensure good service quality, and how the staff are motivated to deliver this service. We wanted to examine this from a management perspective, and an employee perspective. Information was gathered through various interviews, where the staff at the Hotel Kämp in Helsinki and at the Sheraton Hotel Stockholm participated.Survey results show that employee motivation, training and empowerment have a significant impact to provide service in high quality. The results also show that the surveyed hotel, to certain level work in the same way, but it reveals some differences even when both hotels are part of the same concern..

The aim of our study has been to investigate what kind of space there is to exert influence for adult persons with mild intellectual disabilities who live on group housing. We wanted to investigate what kind of hindrance and possibilities there were to exert influence for people on group housing. Our study has been built on qualitative group discussions with 9 persons with mild intellectual disabilities and 6 care-keepers. We have analysed our discussions on the basis of the theory of empowerment. Our result indicates that there is different kind of factors that affect the possibilities for people with mild intellectual disabilities to increase their influence, and it does not always have to do with the disability how the persons can make their voices heard.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse how and why culture and tradition is created and maintained within a minor student society at a Swedish university by looking at its history. The West Coast Nation student society provided the material which was subsequently analysed and three sociological perspectives were applied in order to give the study a theoretical base. In order to investigate the purpose of the society, durkheimian theories on functionalism were applied. Moreover, Bourdieu?s thoughts on social fields were used as well as Elias? theories on the established and the outsiders.

Our understanding is that responsibility is shifting from the community towards the individual within the field of social work. This resulted in our essay, which aims to study how the representatives within social service assistance and churches in Helsingborg work with personal power. Our aim is also to illustrate how these representatives view the boundaries of responsibility between the individual and the community. Our questions are: How do the representatives work with personal power from a micro and macro perspective? How do the representatives look upon their position as representatives? What do the representatives consider as responsibility of the individual respective the community? And; Are there preventing factors from individual responsibility? We obtained our empirical material from a qualitative method consisting of interviews.

The aim of this study was to investigate the emotions among the staff at the group housings when they observe the caretakers expressions of masturbation and how the staff handles these expressions in their daily and long-term work. The theoretical concepts that were used in this study are group housing as a public and private arena, occupational role, relation, humanistic effort, pedagogical effort, empowerment, care ethic and emotions. The concepts are related to each other and constitutes the foundation for the analysis of the empirical data used in this study. A qualitative study was carried out, in forms of half structured interviews with six informants, of which the majority was women. It came to light that the interviewees only had positive feelings for the caretaker?s expressions of masturbation.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka huruvida ett pilotprojekt bestående av en ny typ avmedarbetar- och lönesamtal i Sandvikens kommun givit någon effekt på rolltydlighet,empowerment och arbetstillfredsställelse. Vidare var syftet att undersöka sambanden mellanrolltydlighet, empowerment och arbetstillfredsställelse. En enkät besvarades av 62förskollärare. Genom t-test undersöktes skillnaden mellan förskollärare som deltar i projektet(N=34) och andra förskollärare (N=28) gällande dessa variabler, men inga signifikantaskillnader kunde visas. En multivariat regressionsanalys visade i enlighet med tidigareforskning ett samband mellan rolltydlighet och arbetstillfredsställelse, men något sambandmellan empowerment och arbetstillfredsställelse visades inte.

The purpose of this media scientific study is to contribute to a better understanding about how blind people?s empowerment and participation may affect their role in the digital society.Earlier international studies in this area have shown that blind people not only need more knowledge then the seeing population about the computer, but also about the technology behind their tools for using Internet. The results from these studies have also shown that Internet increases the blind people?s independents and that those who use Internet feel more involved in the society.A qualitative method was chosen to study the three most common categories from the earlier studies: knowledge of technology, empowerment and participation. Are there differences in the results compared to our study in Sweden 2014?Interviews with eight blind, experienced computer users have shown that knowledge of technology is essential for their use of Internet and that the Internet increases their empowerment and their participation.

Diabetes mellitus typ 2 (DMT2) är en växande sjukdom som patienten kan påverka genom att byta livsstil. I Sverige har 365 000 personer diagnostiserats med diabetes mellitus typ 2. Det tros finnas lika många personer med oupptäckt diabetes mellitus typ 2. Syftet med studien var att undersöka på vilket sätt sjuksköterskan ska utföra empowerment för att motivera diabetes mellitus typ 2 människor till förbättrad egenvård. Som metod användes litteraturstudie.

Background: There has been a process of de-institutionalisation and mental health care re-forms in Sweden. Social services are, according to the law, responsible for helping persons with mental illness to live a life like others and to participate in the community. The aim of the study was to describe the culture in one of the social services adult day care center for social relations and activities in Stockholm. The aim was also to focus on the importance of the adult day care center for recovery and empowerment from the participants´ perspective. Methods Observations in the adult day care center were combined with four interviews with regular participants.