This thesis is an investigation of Iranian immigrants and their use of libraries in Sweden. It isbased on a combination of a qualitative and a·quantitative method.Using a qualitative method, I give an outline of the history of lran from ancient times up to the present, as well as the different ethnological groups in Iran and their cultures. The main objective of this part is to clarify the contrasts between Iranian and Swedish cultural, social, linguistic and family structures, and also the characteristics of the crisis that most immigrants go through on their arrival in the new country. The qualitative method also involves structured telephone interviews with eight highly educated Iranians.This method was supplemented by a quantitative study through questionnaires of the attitudes· of lranian immigrants to libraries and reading. Iranians in Sweden turned out to be frequent Iibrary users.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to find out what support students of Swedish for Immigrants (sfi) think they get from the public library during their study of the Swedish language. One important aspect in this essay is to examine whether the library can meet the need of Swedish-speaking meeting places where the sfi-students can practise their new language. The method used in this study is qualitative interviews. Nine sfi-students, one sfiteacher and one librarian have been interviewed. A sociocultural perspective on learning has served as a theoretical starting point.

The house of one of the most prominent Swedish artists of the 20th century, Bror Hjorth (1894-1968), was turned into an artists-museum and opened to the public in 1978. It has since the start held pedagogical activities and during the years developed its own pedagogical approach.I have studied the museums pedagogical work from two perspectives; visiting groups of immigrants and visiting groups of schoolchildren, in search of answers to the questions; can art be used as a way to integrate immigrants into the swedish society, and can artmuseums be a resource for schools?This essay contains my observations, conclusions and theories as well as general facts about Bror Hjorths House..

The study has examined how some immigrants have managed to reestablish their professional careers in Sweden. Through in-depth-interviewing with six immigrant informants representing different genders, age and professional experience the process of successfully reestablishing a career within the same professional area in Sweden as in their native country is examined.The study looked at structural and individual possibilities and obstacles which affected the individual. In addition the study looked at the personal characteristics and strategies used by the informants to overcome and succeed in adapting and reestablishing their working life.  The study has drawn on human capital and social capital theory for a basic understanding of how education and skills affect. In addition the informants have surpassed structural barriers affecting many other immigrants.

The essay discusses underlying racism in the Swedish community and has, as a specific purpose, to illustrate and analyze how images of immigrants are constructed in a local setting. The questions at issue are: What established conceptions about racism exist and how are immigrants described by the youth in Sweden? Which racist manifestations are evident? To answer these questions, twelve interviews with students from an upper secondary school in Lund are done. Discourse analysis and other central aspects to alienation such as categorization and stereotyping, concepts about ?the Others? and underlying racism, have been used to analyze the interviews.

We were commissioned to do this study by the Red Cross Centre for victims of torture and war (RKC) in Skövde and questions was asked about how it can be to come as a refugee to a new country and start over. The purpose of this study was to search for a deeper knowledge about older immigrants experiences of their integration in the Swedish community. The conception of ?older immigrant? aimed of persons born before 1954 since these persons culturally was the older ones in the patient group at RKC. This study handled both men and women, was categorised in different themes and was analysed from theoretical points about identity and crises.

ABSTRACT Within migration and globalization the concept of ethnic identity, religious identity and belonging have come to play a significant role in both immigrants? lives and as well in social context. Sweden, as a multicultural society has been dealing with different ethnic groups of immigrants and the way these minority groups perceive themselves to be and how they are perceived by others in the society has also come to be of high importance. By migrating people also change their position. They often occupy inferior positions in the society when they settle down in the new country.

ABSTRACT This research explores how the Work Integration Center (AIC) supports unemployed immigrants in acquiring jobs and how the practical work helps immigrants in entering the labour market. It employs qualitative research approach through semi-structured interviews staff members at AIC and municipal commissioners of education and labour market in the municipality of Malmö. Its aim is to examine how governmental setup guidelines were represented in the practical work. These guiding principles of the organization are presented at the top of municipality. The findings suggest that even if the staff has no knowledge of the official measures of the integration plans, they have implemented the aims and criteria in their work with the immigrants.

The aim of this thesis is to seek understanding to how a national identity is constructed. Five women and five men at the age of 21-37 years old have been interviewed during November 2005 and January 2006. All of them lived Oslo at the time. The informants have been divided into two groups, `Swedish immigrants` and `Norwegian immigrants`, none of the people interviewed is ethnic `Swedish` or `Norwegian`. The empirical material has been analysed with the help of Billig´s theory about banal nationalism and Laclau and Mouffe´s discourse analysis.

Sweden is divided according to an ethnic boundary, which divides people in "we" and "the others", "Swedes" and "immigrants" (Ålund, 2002). We believe this is due to the fact that society categorises immigrants all the time as a homogeneous group with fixed and static qualities, resulting in a situation where you cannot represent yourself as a person. Instead you are represented on the basis of your ethnic belonging. Young immigrants often grow up under other conditions and find themselves in more vulnerable situations than Swedish youths. The purpose with this paper was to investigate young people with different ethnic backgrounds, their thoughts and feelings about their identity, group belongingness and future.

Illegal fildelning är ett världsomfattande problem som har skapat heta debatter i många länder. I Sverige är den illegala fildelningen ett vanligt förekommande fenomen. För att komma till rätta med denna verksamhet har vår egen upphovsrättslag uppdaterats och den omdiskuterade IPRED-lagen införts. Trots detta är företeelsen illegal fildelning fortfarande vanligt förekommande i dagens Sverige. Den här studien har haft som syfte att undersöka varför personer fortfarande fildelar samt vad som skulle få dem att sluta med denna verksamhet.

The house of one of the most prominent Swedish artists of the 20th century, Bror Hjorth (1894-1968), was turned into an artists-museum and opened to the public in 1978. It has since the start held pedagogical activities and during the years developed its own pedagogical approach.I have studied the museums pedagogical work from two perspectives; visiting groups of immigrants and visiting groups of schoolchildren, in search of answers to the questions; can art be used as a way to integrate immigrants into the swedish society, and can artmuseums be a resource for schools?This essay contains my observations, conclusions and theories as well as general facts about Bror Hjorths House..

AbstractThis thesis is centered on the economic condition and background of immigrants living in Sweden, with focus on Araby, Växjö. To guide us through this enormous work we formulated research questions, which are:Why have foreigners (immigrants) a greater risk of becoming economic vulnerable? How does economic vulnerability effect families with children?What strategies do families adopt under hard economic conditions? What strategies does the society adopt in assisting families, by economic aid, that are economic vulnerable?  Our sample was from a school where we administered an open ended questionnaire to selected students and we also had a comprehensive interview session with ten families in the community so as to have a complete picture of their living condition and how they think people are economically vulnerable.We concentrated on the causes, consequences and strategies of how economic vulnerability is handled by immigrants in Sweden. In our analysis we found out, though our respondents? answers, that the causes of economic vulnerable are background, language, priorities et cetera.

Immigrants and children of immigrants are statistically lumped together into a category of "person with foreign background". Blatte is a degrading and violating word when directed at immigrants by Swedes. The aim of my essay was to test to what extent the Swedish term "blatte" could be qualified as an ethnicity in the sense that young people with foreign background born between 1981 and 1984 living in a neighborhood with a high population of people with foreign backgrounds have another ethnicity, besides the Swedish and the "home country ethnicity" to find themselves and their identity in.My method consisted of interviewing six people between the ages of 21 and 24 with different ethnic backgrounds living in a limited area of Malmö, Sweden´s third biggest city. I tested my hypothesis of these people having a third ethnicity to relate to against three schools and from two out of three schools defending my hypothesis, my result is that blatte can not fully be seen as an ethnicity but definitely shows tendencies of becoming one in the future..

?Claiming the right to space? is an argument frequently used by street artists for justifying illegal art in the public space. The public city space as a room of democracy and right to free speech is by some people considered threatened by commercial interests, and street art has become a way to demonstrate disapproval towards this. Street art is illegal and often anonymously performed in our cities. It developed in the late 1970s from the urban graffiti scene in America, and has therefore a lot in common with the graffiti movement.