Participation of the people is essential for a democracy's vitality and survival. In this study we focus on the individual as an active participant in the traditional political arena and beyond its sphere into the society as a whole. The first part of the study has a normative aim. Firstly we examine why political participation is essential for democracy, and especially the ideal of representative democracy and the restricted passive participation of its citizens in comparison to the ideal of participatory democracy and its ideal of an active participant in all aspects of society. An ideal participant is drawn up to set the course for the empirical part of the study.

SummaryThe numbers of students in higher education with foreign background are still lower than expected. The universities around the country are increasingly committed to attract students among this group. Many of investments and researches have been done to explore new approaches. There is need to understand how students evaluate their choices. These studies will help marketing the educations which are more responsive to student's expectations.

AbstractWhen immigrants move to Sweden from their native country it is not unusual that they experience some kind of identity crises. Their own experience of their cultural identity can be very problematic and they often lose a part of what they previously saw as their own identity. To handle such crises the immigrants can use different strategies. They can for example accept their disparity, deny it or emphasize it. The aim of this study is to examine how immigrants in Sweden experience that their cultural identity has changed since they moved here from a country that has a culture that is different from the Swedish culture.

This paper has focused on specific aspects of the law concerning the 3rd paragraph of The Care of Young Persons Act (1990:52), LVU. The purpose of this study was to examine the prerequisite other social destructive behaviour in four cases where youths has been under compulsory institutional care because of their computer gaming. The study was composed on a legal dogmatic method and a legal sociologist perspective. The legal dogmatic method implies to examine the law and its elaboration, the legal sociologist perspective focus on the consequences and causes of the court of law. The study shows that problematic computer gaming is an increasing problem in society and that other social destructive behaviour is a wide prerequisite that need new amendment in order to ensure citizens certainty..

Integration policies have failed to make diversity into anything more than occupying the same physical space. People of different cultural background still do not share their lives to any real extent. Attempts made within planning and landscape architecture to catalyst the integration process have mainly been focused on structural measures, such as residential policies. As for outdoor environments, non-verbal casual encounters in the shape of crossing paths are assumed to lie at the heart of urban social integration.The aim of the thesis is to question this assumption and, as the thesis will show, there is literature supporting this aim. Looking at the works of Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser and some of their followers, I find intercultural contact to require more complex ways of interaction in order to reduce prejudice and to generate tolerance and understanding.

Integration policies have failed to make diversity into anything more than occupying the same physical space. People of different cultural background still do not share their lives to any real extent. Attempts made within planning and landscape architecture to catalyst the integration process have mainly been focused on structural measures, such as residential policies. As for outdoor environments, non-verbal casual encounters in the shape of crossing paths are assumed to lie at the heart of urban social integration.The aim of the thesis is to question this assumption and, as the thesis will show, there is literature supporting this aim. Looking at the works of Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser and some of their followers, I find intercultural contact to require more complex ways of interaction in order to reduce prejudice and to generate tolerance and understanding.

The purpose of our master thesis was to investigate how a multicultural society is reflected in childrens books picture books, books for children and young people, published in 2002. We found this issue interesting since children of today experience a change in society, where people of many ethnicities, cultures and religions live together to a greater extent than before. Since children in their everyday life are exposed to these different cultures, we think they also should be exposed to them in the books they read. In order to enhance an understanding of why such books are important to children, especially immigrant children, we have in our thesis included a passage with childrens linguistic development, identification and stereotypes. Other passages concern libraries and their roles in a multicultural society.

The study?s purpose was to gain comprehension and knowledge about immigrate women?s vision on benefits respective disadvantages with arranged marriages.The study?s question at issues was:(1) How do the women consider that the ideal marriage is suppose to be?(2) How do the women experience that their vision on marriage has changed in a new culture?(3) How do the women consider that parents reasons, around the choice of a partner at arranged marriages?To be able to answer these questions at issues we used a qualitative method where interviews carried out with four immigrated women from four different countries where Islam is widespread religion. Common for these women is that they all are Muslims and that they come from countries where arranged marriages are practiced. They also have concrete experience of arranged marriages, either through themselves or someone they know.Material from interviews was analysed with a help of patriarchal theory and social constructivism. We have also analysed the material with a theory about culture and a theory about groups.

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.

This thesis concentrates on the organization surrounding the school transports in Norrköping and its surrounding areas. It is a qualitative research based on interviews with four different groups that is included by this organization, local municipal officials, entrepreneurs, school personnel and youths depending on this service. I have used organization theory as a theoretical base. In my study it became clear to me that this is a complex and multifarious organization. The many different actors sometimes make it hard to survey all the different parts of the organization.

This essay deals with the subject of communication through Facebook. In this survey we studied 100 youths from Karlstad and their communication habits and behavior patterns on Facebook. The social network site Facebook has since its start in 2004 made a mark in modern communication. Today in 2010 the site has more than 500 million users. This paper wants to study what happens to other types of communication.

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.

The purpose of this study was to examine high school students conceptions of young people who run away or get thrown out of their homes. Earlier research shows that this group of young people often come from families were physical, psychological and sexual abuse is reappearing factors. They often face a life of homelessness, drug abuse and prostitution. Still there is little research done about this phenomenon and what kind of help and support these young people could need. This study was done in a qualitative approach with the use of focus groups.

This essay deals with the subject of communication through Facebook. In this survey we studied 100 youths from Karlstad and their communication habits and behavior patterns on Facebook. The social network site Facebook has since its start in 2004 made a mark in modern communication. Today in 2010 the site has more than 500 million users. This paper wants to study what happens to other types of communication.

The aim of this study is to analyze the justification of a financial incentive that rewards students who rapidly finish their studies within the language education ?Swedish for immigrants? (sfi). Thereby, we want to see what assumptions are made about the students, and relate this to experiences of the education at a local level. We applied a text analysis on a government bill about the incentive, which showed that the deficiencies in the education are said to be caused by the students? lack of effort.