Popular culture is a phenomenon of growing importance in the society today. Children and teenagers are increasingly using popular culture in their everyday life to reflect and answer questions about their identities and the meaning of life. Swedish primary and upper secondary schools are expected to prepare their students for adulthood and to provide them with tools to explain understand and problematize contemporary society. From this perspective it is relevant to question whether the schools achieve this and whether the instruction given there represents the contemporary society. For the purpose of knowing more about how popular culture is perceived and dealt with in the Swedish education system, this study examines how eight textbooks in Religious Education (RE) and the national curriculum for upper secondary school discuss and treat popular culture.  The study focuses on when and in what ways the textbooks mention popular culture and if the curriculum provides any supportive base for including popular culture in religious education.

This paper deals with the question of neolithisation of Southern Scandinavia. The main goal is to give an overview of three theories regarding how agriculture and livestock breeding was introduced to the Southern Scandinavia. These are as follows: the immigration theory, the socio-economic theory and the historical explanation theory. Furthermore it is investigated which theory has the most probably support in material culture. There are obvious difficulties in interpreting the archaeological material.

Popular culture is a phenomenon of growing importance in the society today. Children and teenagers are increasingly using popular culture in their everyday life to reflect and answer questions about their identities and the meaning of life. Swedish primary and upper secondary schools are expected to prepare their students for adulthood and to provide them with tools to explain understand and problematize contemporary society. From this perspective it is relevant to question whether the schools achieve this and whether the instruction given there represents the contemporary society. For the purpose of knowing more about how popular culture is perceived and dealt with in the Swedish education system, this study examines how eight textbooks in Religious Education (RE) and the national curriculum for upper secondary school discuss and treat popular culture.  The study focuses on when and in what ways the textbooks mention popular culture and if the curriculum provides any supportive base for including popular culture in religious education.

Abstract ?The Vampire from past to present?. This essay studies and compares the early historical Vampire as it is presented in some of the Western Europe countries, primarily Greece, but also Romania and how their descriptions of the Vampire have inspired the portrait of vampires in modern films and literature. The essay aims to answer the questions:How has the historical, traditional, European Vampire developed through the centuries into the modern Vampire of today? Which original facts and perceptions about the Vampire from a Christian and pre-Christian point of view can be observed in the modern Vampire, as it is presented in the chosen films and furthermore, can any new ideas be observed in the films?By studying Vampire literature and poems throughout the centuries, a very interesting picture appears.

Hunting is considered as the most masculine activity in our society. Historically, man has been described as the provider for his family, this in the forms of hunting and gathering. Today hunting is still associated with a male hunter, but women have started to infiltrate the hunting culture. In this study hunting culture is analyzed with a gender perspective. In a modern society with gender and equality as a big subject of debate it is interesting to examine this impact on a culture so linked with masculinity.

The aim of this paper is to examine the psychosocial work environment and safety culture in minor Swedish airports. The purpose is also to investigate the relationships between these two. The paper deals with theories regarding psychosocial work environment, organizational culture and safety as well as safety culture and safety climate. The participants are air traffic controllers working in minor airports in Sweden. The psychosocial work environment was measured with Copenhagen psychosocial questionnaire (COPSOQ) and the safety culture with the safety culture assessment questionnaire (SCAQ).

The aim of this study was to illuminate the experience of climacteric in women with different culture backgrounds. The method was a literature review. Results are made of nine scientific articles. Sex main themes come out. The results are showing that the experience of climacteric is varying from woman to woman and from culture to culture.

The essay discusses the effects that changes to the office plan have on organizational culture. Information about actual change as well as expected change in organizational culture was gathered before the empirical research was initiated. The empirical research was carried out at the Customer Logistics department at Ericsson through: an interview with a manager in charge of the relocation and design of the office, a manager for the specified department and also five employees of this department. The empirical studies show that there was a significant change in organizational culture and that results were not always as expected. There was a loss in symbolic actions, which needed to be compensated for, a perceived reduction in spontaneous communication, and a mixed response of perceived change in social interaction.

By conducting a text analysis this study analyzes possible similarities in the portrayal of story characters between historical Norse myths and contemporary film productions. The chosen historical texts are two stories from Norse mythology which render a myth about Thor and a giant named Hrunge as well as the myth Trymskvädet. The selected movies are two of the comic company Marvel?s productions about super heroes ? Thor and The Avengers. Different categories that this study compares are how the characters are defined by their possessions or artefacts, the actions and the choices which the characters make, and also how their relations, roles and origins are being portrayed.

The National Arts Council[1] has made an evaluation on obstacles and success factors for the interaction between culture and school. In the evaluation report they concluded that teachers and cultural workers have different views on culture and knowledge which creates confusion in their interaction. Thus I became interested to investigate teachers and cultural workers views on culture, aesthetics, and the knowledge that they think the students / children / young people should get from culture and aesthetics. This work is based on qualitative interviews with four teachers and four cultural workers. I compare their views with each other and link it to different research perspectives on culture and aesthetics in school to get an understanding of the similarities and differences in their approach, and what implications it can have in the school?s learning processes. In this work, from a didactic point of view, I found that when the teachers and cultural workers are talking about culture, the why-perspective differs.

This thesis investigates the former apple orchard ?pplehagen with a focus on its origin, history, and remaining fruit trees. Historical aerial photographs, historical maps, an interview with a former owner, together with a field investigation has served as the methods of this survey. The investigation shows that ?pplehagen probably was established between 1882 and the 1930?s as a rational orchard in the spirit of the time aiming to produce fruit both for household and for sale.

There are shortcomings when it comes to recent studies by a Roma perspective on Roma culture and traditions. The purpose of this paper is to understand how the Roma present themselves in eight articles with an emphasis on culture, language and identity. The questions are as follows:First, how the Roma articles manufactures the Roma culture and what do these articles say about culture, identity and language from a Roma perspective? Second, how can the Roma preserve and develop their culture and be a part of Swedish society in accordance with Articles?Some of the findings are that the Roma language, Roma clothing and Roma music is part of the Roma culture. Similarly, social codes and traditions such as International Roma Day, which is a Romani celebration.

Secondary deciduous forests, which have their origin in earlier pasture- and meadow-land in slopes along the lower reaches of the Ume river, are thought to contain high nature conservation values, in spite of a relatively low age. The aim of this study was to clarify how factors as historical use, exposition, disturbance dynamics and successional age influences the conservation values in these types of riparian forests and how this can be implicated in the practical work with conservation and management at Umeå municipality. Sample plots were placed in seven stands with a variation of their historical use, exposition, disturbance dynamics and age of succession. Conservation values as structure, tree-regeneration, abundance and composition of vascular plants, amount of dead wood and the abundance of signal-species were measured and registered. The species composition and especially the composition of tree species, differed between forests with different exposition and different historical use.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to investigate the culture for children in the age of 10-12 year-old at the library in a small town and to see if the library and children shared the same view of the libraries missions. We have interviewed 3 groups of 5-7 children at two times. We have also interviewed a children librarian about her opinion of her work and childrenculture. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child works as our theory in this thesis.

The purpose of this investigation is to see if there is any difference in how long pupils are staying in the activity of the music- and culture schools in the country. I have compared this with how large the teachers engagements are in average at each school, how many teachers each school holds and if one teacher is teaching within different areas, e.g. on different instruments. Thru mail contact with the headmasters at the music- and culture schools I have gathered data concerning the length of which the pupils are staying at the schools, the number of teachers at each school, the size of the teachers services and in how many different areas each teacher is teaching.It has been hard to get to any results in the investigation since the music- and culture schools don?t compile statistics on how long their pupils are staying at their schools.