The purpose of this paper is to investigate, analyse and interpret the educational ideals of the ABF (Workers Educational Association) as they are understood by five members within ABF. The paper also examines how the educational ideals are represented in the national guidelines and statues of the ABF. The basic theoretical perspectives are intercultural theory and theories about Bildung and adult liberal education in a multi-cultural pedagogical environment presented by Bernt Gustavsson and Hans Lorentz respectively.The empirical study consists of five semi-structured interviews and a text study of the official documents of the ABF. The data is interpreted with hermeneutic and semiotic tools. Organisational theory focusing on organizational culture has also contributed to the study.The result of the study, when analysed in accordance to the methods, shows mainly four things.

This master?s paper first presents some of the principal theories and concepts developed by the poverty researchers Rowntree, Titmuss, Townsend, Sen and Lister. These theoretical frameworks are then related to two documents from the EU and Sweden concerning combating poverty and social exclusion, bearing on the establishment of the ?Year 2010 against Poverty?. Finally, I discuss the value in practice of these theories and policy documents, as regards reducing poverty in Europe.It has become clear in this investigation that the theories and concepts from earlier research are still relevant to the formulation of contemporary policy programmes, and that earlier research helps us to avoid old traps in fighting poverty.

The swedish education system in general and the swedish gymnasium in particular is at the point of a thorough reform of the guidelines in education. One major difference given in the guidelines is that the former core subject of arts education is abandoned in favour of making history a mandatory class. This despite the curriculum outlined in 1994 remains. Through comparativ text analysis of the documents and reports outlining this reform and defining the curriculum as well as the guidelines for the education system this study aims to point out the reasons for this change. Through in depth interviews with teachers, educators and authorities in addition to readings of contemporary research on arts in education the study will depict a larger picture of the scheme of things.

This essay is a comparative research between pupils' experience of how the headmaster, teachers and other school staff interpret and apply the democratic education. The results are based on a survey carried out in senior high school, as well as interviews with the school staff. The democratic education charge has a long history of Swedish school system and is the basis for the maintenance of a democratic society. Both policy paper of state investigations and researchers in the field, regard to school as the primary and unique instance in order to promote and develop democratic skills in children and young people. However, it is shown that those who come out from school lack of knowledge and awareness of democracy and the will to speak their mind.

This essay deals with the question of lines of development within the politics in the rural municipality of Nyed 1950-1962. The aim is to explore how local politics and policies were handled from two perspectives. Firstly the issue of conflict and consensus or majority rule and consensus. Here Arend Lijphard's theory of majority and consensus provides a theoretical base for the essay. Secondly the aim is to explore the actions of the local politicians with regards to leisure time policies to find out whether or not they ideologically belonged to the concept of ?folkhemmets kommun? by Ulla Ekström von Essen.The source material for this essay has been the minutes from the two major bodies of local politics in Nyed, kommunalfullmäktige and kommunalnämnden.

This thesis aims to develop a theory in the under researched field of international comparative cultural policy studies. lt does so by combining theories from the fields of political scienceand cultural studies, researching how and to what extent the concepts of culture of different states have an impact on the way cultural policies are constructed.The thesis uses this theoretical development in order to research a specific problem, namely the perceived possibility that Swedish and German cultural structures are slowly converging. Two recent official policy documents from each country are the objects of study. Through comparative idea analysis and with Michiel S. D Vries theories on decentralization, the thesis explains the convergence between the countries by differing cultural views between them.

The objective for this study was to acquire a greater insight if children with concentration difficulties are assisted by outdoor education in the traditional teaching. With the use of a qualitative methodology four teachers were interviewed. The outcome gave evidence for that the teachers thought that outdoor education has a positive outcome for children with concentrations difficulties. The findings were divided into three key categories: the teacher?s reflections about outdoor education, outdoor education for children with difficulties in concentration and if there was any difference in how the children behaved indoors after having educations outdoors..

The aim of this study is to analyze the process of an agenda setting and see how a specific issue came to materialize on the security policy agenda. The empirical goal of the study is to see why Sweden chose to participate in the EU-led operation to Chad, and how that process came to be? The analysis is based upon Kingdon's multiple streams theory (2003) where he distinguishes the process into three streams. Central for his theory is the coupling of these streams and the importance of a policy entrepreneur. I complement Kingdon's theory of policy entrepreneurs by taking inspiration from Hinnfors (1995), Gustavsson (1999) and especially Eriksson (2000) and their analysis of policy change and agenda setting.

A systematic quality work is essential for anyone working in preschool, school,kindergarten and adult education to give children and students an equal education.Skollagen (2010:800) indicates that quality work should be focused on the nationalgoals of education. According to Skolverkets allmänna råd med kommentarer omsystematiskt kvalitetsarbete - för skolväsendet (2012) is the work to develop quality acontinuous process. Everyone's involvement and participation is therefore essential.Systematic quality work means to systematically and continuously monitor theactivities, analyze performance against national targets and based on that plan anddevelop. Although the work has been driven outside governmental policy documentssince 1997 shows, among others, Skolinspektionens audits of municipalities andschools that there is major deficiencies in the obligation to conduct a systematicquality work. It appears that more than half of the surveyed schools had deficienciesin its system quality work.This is the starting position this study takes on to and through literature review,document studies and interviews of principals is the subject problematized.

Since 1820 there has been a continuous discussion about the contents of history courses and the current debate considering this school subject is no exception; it is as vital as ever. Both in educational policy and public debate the role of history as a school subject has been brought up for discussion.In this study the writer has chosen to study the politically independent interest organization HLF. The organization is a non profit association, which works for the consolidation of history in Swedish schools.The purpose of this study is to investigate how the organization HLF has received and met the ongoing debate on this issue. The writer has chosen to examine the strategies the organization has used in order to influence this school subject and if they have succeeded in doing this.To carry out this study the writer has made use of HLF´s annuals as well as Aktuellt om historia, which is a publication that the organization issues three or four times a year. The conclusion of this study is that HLF has little influence when it comes to the formulation of the education of history.

This thesis is a case study that examines what political decisions have been taken and how these policies have been implemented. Further this thesis discusses how legitimacy of local policy makers and implementors is affected. The subject studied have been the social service of Jönköping municipality and the intervention of safe-housing aimed at women who have been, or are subject to violence by person close to them. In our study we have examined local policy within the territory of the intervention and how this policy is implemented. A qualitative method with semi-structured interviews was used in combination with quantitative methods to examine protocols from the social welfare board and an action program named "Skydd och stöd för misshandlade kvinnor och deras barn? [Protection and support for abused women and their children].The purpose of this study has been to highlight how the social services implemented the local policy of safe-house accommodation in Jönköping municipality from the legitimacy and discretion perspectives.

Fiscal policy and its consequences have attracted much attention on both academic and societal level, in Sweden and elsewhere. However, the dependence between fiscal policy on municipality level and business cycles has only recently sparked a debate among Swedish economists. Studies point out that a law which came to force in 2000, balanskravet, may have caused municipalities to lower expenditures, alternatively raising taxes, during recessions. This thesis examines how the level of municipality taxes depends on business cycle fluctuations and the impact that balanskravet has had on this correlation. We employ econometric regressions, with annual data covering the period 1980-2014, to enable an analysis of the dependence between taxes and business cycles, both before and after the introduction of balanskravet.

The aim of this study is to explain the paradox of the memberstates willingness to surrender power of important issues such as asylum and refugee policy and therefore partly abandon its sovereignty. We also discuss the relation between internationalization, regionalization and globalization since these processes form the context in which our research problem is found. A case study is used as a method in this paper.In our quest for answers we use a theory of internationalization that we place in its context by primarily discussing the relation between globalization and regionalization. The theory is used as an explanatory force and to give it a concrete form we operationalised its three processes; internationalization of problems, internationalization of the societies and internationalization of the descisionmaking.The result of the case study shows that the increase in asylumseekers leads to a higher risk of negative competition wich give rise to the memberstates need to coordinate their politics.We found that when societies and problems are being internationalized, the state finds it difficult to resolve problems on their own and this leads to the internationalization of the dedescisionmaking. The internationalization of the decision-making process is therefore natural, which in this case means the decisions are taken by the EU rather than by the member states..

Aim: To examine director?s experiences of the process to implement smoke-free working hours and also their need of support to make it feasible in the municipality of Östhammar. Method: A qualitative interview study with a descriptive design was used. Semi-structured interviews were made with six directors who were selected from different levels, localities and administrations in the municipality of Östhammar. A qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data.Results: Many positive aspects were pointed out regarding the implementation of smoke-free working hours.

The Swedish household?s savings has increased the last couple of years, according to Statistiska centralbyrån. But the amount of households that trades on the stock market has decreased from the year 2012 to 2013. The diminished interest in stock trading carries a risk by leading to a smaller yield for the private savers, and also effect the business development and the economic growth. High brokerage fees will aggravate the ability to attract venture capital.