In the school political debate that is conducted in Sweden the question of grading is an ongoing topic of discussion. During the past year there has been a lively discussion about introducing grade from year four as suggested by the right wing parties. The purpose of this study is to set the teaching faculties? view and arguments in relation to the politicians' opinion in the ongoing debate about the proposal of introducing grades from year four. Furthermore, the aim is to investigate how central the didactic arguments are in relation to other arguments in the current debate.

The concept of sustainable development is a challenge that demands cooperation from all levels of society for it to be successful. The focus for this thesis is how politicians within the local councils understand the concept of sustainable development and how they implement it in political decision-making.The basis for the study is a questionnaire that was distributed to 303 local politicians in three municipalities of varying size in Southern Sweden. The study concentrates on departments within the local councils that are directly connected to the Swedish environmental law and the Swedish planning and construction law. One of the primary goals with the aforementioned laws is the achievement of sustainable development within one generation.The outcome of the study was that over half of the local politicians could correctly define sustainable development according to the World Commission on Environment and Development?s (WCED) definition.

This thesis focuses on how sewdish politicians try to argue to get other EU-countries to accept a larger responsibility for refugees. Since the war in Iraq broke out in 2003 there have been a great increse in the number of refugees arriving to Europe. Sweden have accepted a very large part of these refugees. This have sparked a debate in Sweden aboute how reasonable it is that sweden accepts a proportionaly much larger number of refugees than other countries within the EU. The swedish gouvernment policy is that responisbility for refugees and migration is something that should be shared by all members of the union.

Researchers in the field of political corruption generally expect voters in democratic states to lose trust in corrupted politicians. However, there are cases where corrupted politicians maintain their popularity, a phenomenon studied in this thesis. Focus lies on three cases of political corruption: the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who has been the subject of several judicial investigations and court cases; the impeached former president of Lithuania, Rolandas Paksas; and the German Christian Democratic Union's (CDU) involvement in a party funding scandal. The cases are chosen based on the method of agreement. Berlusconi, Paksas and CDU have all, in spite of their corrupt behaviour, kept or regained popular support among a large group of their country's citizens.

The purpose of this essay is to describe and partly explain the migration from a German city, and to illustrate the political difficulty surrounded by the phenomenon.I?ve composed following question issues to fulfill the purpose of the study:1.How does the migration take form in Cottbus?2.Why do the students want to migrate?3. Do the politicians consider the migration as a problem? What kind of measures do they want to introduce to prevent it?The survey has been done with mainly qualitative research methods, but it contains some quantitative elements.I?ve made an opinion poll survey among students in Cottbus, interviews with politicians at the city council and interviews with four students that have already left the city.The results of the study show that the will to migrate is widespread by the students in Cottbus. It?s first and foremost the chance to get a job that drives the students to migrate.The city has a deficit of 180 million Euros in household, which makes the politicians to feel helpless, facing the problem of migration.

ABSTRACT Essay in political science, C-level by Chris Baldebo spring semester 2010. Tutor: Arne Larsson. ?Women?s conditions in municipal politics in the municipality of Karlstad - Six politicians tell?.  The purpose of this paper is to explore women?s conditions in the municipal political work in the municipality of Karlstad.

The aim and research questions of this study are concerned about how, and what kind of, problems and subjects that citizens raise during verbal interaction with politicians and officials in the field of participatory democracy. The theoretical framework of the study dominates by theories with a positive approach towards participatory democracy, but there is also a broader discussion on the phenomenon?s strengths and weaknesses.The case in focus of the study is a specific phenomenon of participatory democracy created by the municipality of Växjö. The empirical material that is analysed is consisted of written text based on the verbal interaction from these meetings between citizens and politicians/officials.The outcome of the study shows that most of the verbal interaction was held between citizens and politicians/officials in a vertical direction and that a major part of the responsibility concerning the raised subjects is estimated to be in the hands of the latter part. In the light of under what circumstances the meetings are practised, the democratic and collective minded performance of the citizens is argued to be in good condition, despite the dominating vertical interaction and estimation of trust..

?The modern library in the network society?A study of cultural politicians and librarians opinions about libraries' use of social mediaSocial media is becoming more and more interacted in our daily lives and Carlsson (2013) argues that today's libraries have undergone major challenges in the digital information technology's entry in the library arena. The new technology has led to sum up in one question: how a library should relate to the digital information technology, the issue has applied in particular the social communications media, such as Facebook, Twitter and more. The purpose of this paper is to examine the culture of politicians and librarians 'perceptions of public libraries' use of social media linked to the libraries and their democracy promotion efforts. This is analyzed from Castells theories about the network society and the digital divide.In summary, the study concluded that the majority of the culture politicians and librarians believe that social media is a part of the future of the library.

The concept of sustainable development is a challenge that demands cooperation from all levels of society for it to be successful. The focus for this thesis is how politicians within the local councils understand the concept of sustainable development and how they implement it in political decision-making.The basis for the study is a questionnaire that was distributed to 303 local politicians in three municipalities of varying size in Southern Sweden. The study concentrates on departments within the local councils that are directly connected to the Swedish environmental law and the Swedish planning and construction law. One of the primary goals with the aforementioned laws is the achievement of sustainable development within one generation.The outcome of the study was that over half of the local politicians could correctly define sustainable development according to the World Commission on Environment and Development?s (WCED) definition.

This essay studies the practice of both the political and the administrative leadership at the municipal level from the point of view of the politicians and the chief officers leadership role, and the relationship between politicians and administrators. I discuss and analyse how politicians and senior officials practice leadership, differences or similarities and if their practice of leadership raises any challenges in a democratic framework at the municipal level. I conducted interviews with the municipal political leader and the head of administration at the municipal level in Karlshamn and Sölvesborg. In the analysis I discuss communication as a leadership process which highlights ?enabling elements? and potentials of the leadership process.

I vår undersökning vill vi synliggöra hur ungdomar tänker kring homosexualitet. Forskning kring ämnet homosexualitet bland ungdomar är viktigt för att visa alla de fördomar som finns i skolan och övriga samhället som i sin tur leder till att ungdomar med avvikande sexualitet mår psykiskt dåligt. Ämnet homosexualitet är ett brett forskningsområde. I vår undersökning har vi valt att behandla kunskapsbakgrunden med både avhandlingar, vetenskapliga artiklar, rapporter och organisationers information för att få en heltäckande bakgrund av vårt ämnesval. Vi har gjort en kvalitativ undersökning där vi delat ut enkäter till tre olika gymnasieklasser.

The purpose of this study was to explore experiences of the process of developing a homosexual identity during childhood. We wanted to examine the experiences, feelings and thoughts that young adults, identifying themselves as homosexuals, had growing up in Sweden.For the study a qualitative method was used and nine interviews were made with young adults in the ages of 18 - 30. They answered our questions about their process of developing a homosexual identity, about their friends, family and school and about the society in general. We analysed the material from the interviews using the theory of the coming-out-process as presented by mainly Månsson and Hilte (1990).The main result from the study was that there were some difficulties for our respondents to become aware of their homosexuality and reveal their homosexuality to others. Most of our respondents experienced anxiety and/or fear as they were becoming aware of their sexuality but did become conscious about their homosexuality and accepted it before turning 21 years old.

This study examines the closure of public libraries, and the nonprofit organizations takeover of them as a phenomenon. The aim is to understand why the nonprofit takeover is common and what the takeover symbolizes and if the discourse in media invokes the views on libraries and the profession.Interviews were made with librarians, politicians and representatives of a nonprofit organization to study different sides of the phenomenon. Other empirical data were found in local and national newspapers and media-channels. I discovered that public libraries are highly valued by both politicians and the community. The study also showed that a library in a community makes people feel valued.

Vellinge is one of few municipalities in Sweden that refuses to accept refugees. The subject of this thesis is to find out how the local politicians in Vellinge make their considerations when they decide not to welcome refugees. The analysis uses the representation theory as a starting point. The two ideals of the representative role, either as a bound mandate or as a free independent role, is the base of the analysis. Vellinge is in the analysis compared to Lomma, a very similar municipality in southern Sweden that for a long time alsohas refused to accept refugees, however suddenly in 2007 decided to change their mind.

The aim of this paper is to describe, visualise- and analyse media’s discursive representations of female politicians in Swedish printed media. The focus of the analysis is to show if, and how these images can be understood and interpreted in terms of a socially constructed gender stereotyped suborder. The paper takes it's theoretical and methodological departure in the discourse analysis, which is combined with feminist political theory. Feminist political theory is concretised in the use of what Yvonne Hirdman calls the "gender system" which arranges the sexes into their respective genders and is based upon two rules/principles/logics: 1) the rule of distinctive separation, and 2) the male norm. Closely related to the aim of the paper lies also the critical theoretic assumption that people has to be aware of their own part in the production and reproduction of the discourse in order to change make a change.