Social work is a social phenomenon, existing in most societies, that has given rise to a multitude of special organizations and professions. For that reason social work is dealing with a complex identity. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how social workers and the scientific discourse interpret the concept of social work. In addition to that the study intends to show similarities and differencies. The research process containes two studies, one based on qualitative interviews with five social workers and the other consisting a surway of academic litterature.

The present study deals with the scope of action available to a social worker when analyzing, assessing and proposing measures regarding young persons experiencing social problems. The interest in the subject area emanates from the fact that the number of youth placed in different forms of round the clock out-of-home care in Sweden increases, whereas research in the subject shows that such placement gives few positive results and sometimes even has negative consequences for their development.The study investigates how the preconditions of the social worker influence their scope of possible action, in particular as regards their place of work, the situation of the individual dealt with, and the profession itself being one based both on scientific evidence and knowledge gained by experience. Lipsky?s theory on ?street-level bureaucracy? and Hasenfelds theory on human servicing organizations form the theoretical framework of the present study. The empirical input comes from interviews with focus groups of active social workers.The analysis of the interviews shows that social workers generally feel that they have a broad scope of action as far as the regulatory framework and office management are concerned.

An LSS officer?s activities are governed by laws and regulations and it has great power in influencing the individual's situation when reweaving its case. Officer?s actions have effects on the applicant and it can use its power and not look after the individual's best. Its interest can lie in community and his own position.

According to our apprehension, work of integration is commonly considered managed in the main best through the labour market. Since this path is not available to everybody we wanted to find out how work of integration also can be practised in other areas. The purpose of this paper is to, with focus on children and youth, find out and analyze in what way the people working locally in residential areas and in associations, reflects around integration in general and within their own business, plus in what way they pursue local work of integration practically. The method we have used is qualitative, with unstructured, individual interviews. Our seven respondents within local authority, church and sport clubs, have told us about their work from a perspective of integration.

The purpose of this essay was to in a specific project for unemployed youths between 18 and 24 years, from an ecological point of view, examine how the youths experienced their unemployment and also to compare the purpose and structure of the project with the participants' experience.Important questions in my essay were how the unemployment affected the youths' identity and social circumstances, if the participants found the project meaningful, and experienced that they could influence how the project was formed, if the purpose of the project was in accordance with the youths' experience and how the ecological perspective could be used to understand the situation of the youths.To answer these questions one interview was made with one of the employees and five interviews were made with participant youths.The results of the essay was that the youths' experience of the project were very much individual. All of the participants found something in the project meaningful and most of them thought that it was possible to influence the project in some way. Something that both the youths and the employee pointed out as important was the employees and their supporting role..

Abstract People who have problems with the written language will face serious difficulties in todays society. Our social structur is based on the criterium that every individual has to be able to read and write, and for this reason it is important that pupils with learning difficulties receive help. The purpose of my investigation is to examine how children with reading- and writing difficulties can benefit throught creative methods. Children with reading- and writing difficulties are in need of these creative methods that exist today. Amongst all of our public healht issues, dyslexia is one of the biggest problem we have today and children are therefor in need of these creative methods. Through  qualitative interviews with two educationalists there has been established thad the creative way of working benefits children in many ways if it is preformed correctly.

It appears from today's debate about the quality of social work and addiction treatment that largely focuses on the impact of recent various interventions in the hope of being able to alter social work's role in society and also the organizational structure. The debate points to a part of the 1970s social welfare debate. Today's aspirations to establish an evidence-based practice can hardly be expected to solve the social services basic dilemmas is that it always have to do something, despite the many times you cannot get clear instructions on which funds should be used by law or science. Even if you follow the rules and practices based on scientific studies should the importance of various key initiatives to remedy deficiencies in social service work with addicts in large part depend on how, in these initiatives define the term "evidence-based practice" and what steps will be indicated for to develop practice. My starting point was to explore how evidence-based social work in connection with medication-assisted treatment for opiate addiction look, which evidence-based interventions Social Services currently uses in connection with medication-assisted treatment for opiate addiction, as well as how to work with it in the ordinary course of business. The study showed that social services have become better at using these methods in recent years and that today there are more tools available than before.

 This essay is about a little community in Sweden where the identity as a citizen of Vadstena expresses itself in different ways, whether the individual has immigrated or has been living there for generations. It is also about those processes and structures creating an experienced alienation and an equally strong expressive perspective from within. How does the social construct appear to those who want to be integrated, and for those who are supposed to integrate the immigrants?.

The study deals with the beliefs that relatives of alcohol and drug dependent persons, and representatives from social services have to the various forms of support available for the relatives. Those who participate in the study points out that there are many people who have a need for support as a relative of an alcohol or drug addicted individual, but that there are circumstances that make them choose not to seek assistance. The study shows that the relatives can experience a reluctance to seek support from social services because of how the organization looks like. The study is qualitative, where the collection of the empiric material has consisted in six semi-structured interviews. Three of them have been with relatives of alcohol-or drug-dependent persons and three have been with social workers in various professions, whose work consists of helping both the relatives of people with alcohol and drug dependence as well as people who are dependent.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how a group of students experience their learning when working in groups, and determine if they prefer to work individually or in groups. This study will also investigate what the students believe that they learn when working in groups. The study is based on these two questions:How and what do students perceive that they learn from working in groups?Do the students in my study prefer to work in groups or individually?The method I have used to retrieve information has been to interview four different students. The interviews were individual; I did so to get a deeper view of how students perceive their own learning in groups.

In an organizational change process, motivated employees are considered an asset. Work motivation can both be seen as situational and as a stable individual characteristic. The present study attempts to investigate how the employees at the Social Insurance Office in Scania experience the present organizational change by focusing on work motivation and well-being. Both questionnaires and interviews were adopted to examine the area of interest. Findings indicate that the organizational change is considered chaotic but necessary by the employees.

The aim of this study is to discuss the diagnosis ADHD as a meaning-making discourse that is something more than just a diagnosis with a set of symptoms. I aim to discuss that the diagnosis is productive and can be seen as a means to control and to comfort individuals. The research was based on a method consisting of an idea analysis and a discourse analysis. I am using both a discourse analysis and a critical ideology analysis as perspectives. These perspectives are also based on a general theory of late modernity.

The study sheds light on how individuals from different countries experience the labour action Komjobb. The study aim to examine in which consideration experiences of the action Komjobb differs among the participants. The study is based on eight qualitative interviews and analyzed by using the method of phenomenography. We have based this research on a theory about Social constructivism. Other theories that we have used are Bauman's theory about the changing value of work in the modern and postmodern society and Andersson's theory of unemployment as a social category.

A reforming trend is captured showing that countries are shifting from defined benefit pension systems towards defined contribution systems. The reforms have been justified through predictions that the defined benefit systems will not manage to provide good enough pensions to members in the future. The newer defined contribution pension plans often include individual financial accounts where individuals have the possibility to choose how a part of their pension savings should be invested. Sweden was early to introduce such a system, which at the moment provides more than 800 funds to choose from. The aim of this thesis is to capture the market risk associated with these individual investments and does so by using Monte Carlo simulations for six selected pension funds.

The purpose of this paper is to identify significant factors of influence for the co-existence and team climate within working groups, and to examine their impact on the psychosocial work environment within a group. Team climate and interaction affect every individual in a group. The manager, however, is the one formally accountable for the psychosocial climate in a working group, which is the reason why this study uses the management perspective.As an introduction to the empiric study, an overview of the existing literature within the field was made. A qualitative method is used and the empiric data is based on semi-structured interviews. The study comprises six interviews with department managers within the Social Services in the City Council of Stockholm.