The purpose of this study was to examine the incentives behind Sweden?s decision to engagein the Afghanistan conflict.The method used to fulfil the purpose of the study is content analysis. The material that hasbeen used in the study is various books and articles concerning Sweden in Afghanistan,Swedish foreign policy and perspectives in political science.The study is multi-theoretical and thus the analysis explains the incentives from a liberal, arealist and a constructivist point of view.The conclusion of the study is that identity has a great part in explaining the incentives forSweden to engage in Afghanistan, especially because of the transformation in strategy andforeign policy that has taken place since the end of the cold war. Other factors, such as peacebuilding and national interests also are incentives supported by the material used in the study.Yet, perhaps they are first and foremost connected by the constructivist idea of identity..

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.

In the field of municipal services there are a wide range of aspects a small community must consider, especially considering that the circumstances in which a municipality operate continuously are changing. The changes include, for example, migration, individual lifestyles, the political governance and environment. Especially the latter might have a big impact on a town based on tourism such as Borgholm. We particularly have taken an interest for how this might affect the internal branding and internal brand communication of Borgholm municipality.Through our research we have found that Borgholm municipality in no particular extent is working with living the brand or any similar concepts. Also, we have found that the success of the internal branding of the organization in a great extent depend on the individuals of the different branches of the municipality?s work rather than on a coherent communication structure which reaches the whole organization..

Title: Constructing identity on Facebook.com ? A qualitative ethnographyNumber of pages: 40 (34)Author: Clara LindholmTutor: Amelie HössjerCourse: Media and communications studies CPeriod: HT (Autumn) 2009University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of InformationScience, Uppsala University.Purpose/Aim: The purpose is to study how the social community Facebook.com canbe used in order to construct identity. The study follows three Facebook users in anobservation where they are able to document their thoughts and reflections in anprivate media diary. This study investigates their use of the medium and focuses onthe functions with which they are able to alter their profiles. The result consists of acombination of these reflections, interviews and a selection of literature relevant tothe subject of new media, the use of social internet communities and social sciencetheories.

The European Union is a self proclaimed leader in the field of climate change and has a common target for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. In spite of this, there are great differences between the member states capacity and dedication to the cause of implementing the Unions climate policy and reduce their emissions. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to an understanding of how different European states construct their identity in the context of climate change mitigation. By analyzing national documents from three European states and using tools deriving from discourse analysis, I aim to illuminate differences and similarities in their rhetoric. The result is that due to the states relationship to the European Union and the United Nations, there are great similarities in the way they construct mitigation and their identity.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the Swedish governments discourse on integration of immigrants and thereby examine what social reality it constructs. The aim is to examine how integration and immigrants are constructed within the discourse. The method and theory being used in this essay is discourse theory. As a methodological instrument we use the policy on functional impairment as a comparison. The material being analyzed in this essay is political documents on the strategy on integration policy and the strategy on the policy of functional impairment.

Social media on the internet allows both public and private actors to communicate with each other. The aim of this qualitative study is to explore the relationship between the public and the private in social media on the internet, specifically with emphasis on the identities which are shaped in this relationship. The social media explored in this study is the micro blog Twitter. Data was collected from the pages of three public and private actors on Twitter, specifically with concern to their interaction with public and/or private actors. The data was analysed with support in sociological theories on modernity, identity, self-identity, socialisation and Erving Goffman's theories on everyday expression.

Title: Identity management on Facebook: a qualitative study in approaches to personal identity between two different age groups on the most public stage of our time (Identitetshantering på Facebook: En kvalitativ studie om förhållningssättet till den egna identiteten hos två olika åldersgrupper på vår tids mest offentliga scen).Number of pages: 43.Author: Isabelle Kåge.Tutor: Amelie Hössjer.Course: Media and Communication Studies C.Period: Fall Semester 2010.University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University.Purpose/Aim: To identify differences in attitudes towards and management of personal identity onFacebook within two different age groups.Material/Method: Personal interviews, literature, electronic sources, Internet sources.Main results: Those in the younger age group present themselves differently depending on the person or persons with whom they are communicating. Those in the older age group however, present themselves in a more consequent matter based upon the visibility their actions have to all their friends on Facebook as a whole. The definitions of certain elements on Facebook, such as what constitutes private information or anexcess of photo-tags, differ between the two age groups. Comments and feedback differ in importance and effect between the two age groups. Those in the younger age group are more likely to modify their attitudes towards their identities based upon the functions of Facebook.

This essay, called Motivation and reading comprehension, is a study of the correlation between the motivation to read and the reading comprehension of Swedish students in their final year of school before university level, meaning that they are eighteen or nineteen years old, sometimes more.The relation between the identity of the individual and the learning process has been a matter of scientific interest for some time, and this essay works in that tradition by investigating the connection between how pupils regard reading and how well developed their ability to decode text is.The reading comprehension is measured through a test that consists of a text from the Swedish epic by Vilhelm Moberg, Invandrarna, where the reader at certain intervals throughout the text is asked to mark the correct word from a choice of three. This test has been used and evaluated extensively by Per Fröjd, who has found that the results are reliable and useful.To measure the motivation to read I?ve constructed a survey to be answered before taking the reading test. It focuses on three different parts of reading motivation that are noted as the most important ones by Ivar Bråten. These are the feeling of joy and interest for reading, the goal to acquire knowledge of a specific subject, and the expectations that you have on yourself as a reader.Results show a weak or non-existent correlation between the two factors for the whole of the subjects, but once those who have a first language other than Swedish are removed the correlation becomes significant.

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.

What is discussed here are the events taking place in Sweden in 1885, a turbulent year in Swedish art history. It is shown how the conception of Swedish art, in creating a Swedish identity in art, was expanded.  Two exhibitions were analyzed, Akademiens för de fria konsterna Jubileumsutställning and Opponenternas utställning. While the artists exhibiting at the Academy were using traditional strategies and thechniques, several artists at Opponenterna, were using modern techniques they had learned outside the Academy, mostly in France. These techniques were: experimenting with perspective and the use of empty spaces in mediating ambiance. The third strategy was that of individualization by moving closer to the motif.

How the Eucharist?s motive of communion in combination with Lögstrup?s ethics could motivate a non-alcoholic sacramental wine in the Church of Sweden.The purpose of this essay is to illuminate the meeting between the person who gives out bread and wine in the Eucharist and the person who receives the wine, from tree perspectives: the communion in the Eucharist, the ethical demand of K.E. Lögstrup, and today?s knowledge of alcohol and it?s negative effects on the human being. I want to study how these three perspectives can affect the interpersonal meeting in the Eucharist when it comes to giving out alcoholic wine, and to investigate if Lögstrups ethical demand could be used by the Church of Sweden when to decide about a sacramental wine with or without alcohol.I have started to study K.E Lögstrup and his theory about the ethical demand, and then researched the Eucharist in the Church of Sweden and the results of recent sociological and medical research of alcohol?s effect on the individual and on society.

The purpose of this study was to explore if and how the Swedish Supreme Court are using the concept ?the child?s best interest?. This concept is used a lot in Swedish legislation, but it needs interpretation every time it´s used and is often perceived as unclear. This makes it interesting to see how this affects the individual child´s legal rights. Furthermore I want to see if the Supreme Court listen to the child´s own opinion and if not, are there any justifications to why not.

The purpose of this essay is to critically review Pierre Bourdieus contribution to agency ? structure debate. I will do this with help from the thinking of George Herbert Mead. My aim is to show that Mead can provide valuable knowledge to Bourdieus theory.Pierre Bourdieus notion of habitus is his solution to the dilemma between agency and structure. It is in the habitus that the objective structures meet the inner, subjective structures and this results in various actions.

AbstractThe aim of this study is to examine how individuals, part of a rural Christian parish,express their religiosity and beliefs in a Swedish context. Furthermore this study seeksto understand these religious expressions through different views on social construction,secularization and the privatization perspective, such as lived religion, in particular. Byusing qualitative interviews with 8 individuals analyzed with the theories mentionedabove my results show that secularization has provided many individuals with aChristian identity, however, not necessarily a Christian faith. Instead several of theparticipants show a self-developed religious expression not automatically connectedwith Christian religious practices. One of the participants has, despite a Christiansocialization, developed a non-religious identity.