The study aims to investigate student participation as a tool for democratic development in secondary school from a student perspective. Furthermore, students' perceptions of the school's work with student participation in formal and informal contexts are also investigated, with basis in the teaching structure. The results are based on interviews conducted with students who all attend the same class in their last year of high school. Subsequently, an analysis is made based mainly on three different theories: democracy, curricula and sociocultural theory. The result shows that students feel that they are able to practice student participation but the amount of influence they get differs between individuals depending on devotion and commitment.

I studien har jag ställt frågorna; vad är masskommunikation och hur kan den beskrivas? Vilken väg transporteras en händelse i massmedias infrastruktur? Ambitionen är att undersöka hur masskommunikationen fungerar, därför har tre specifika händelser valts ut för att studeras. Teoretiskt utgår studien ifrån ett mediefilosofiskt synsätt i en postmodern tradition med medieteori av McLuhan, Baudrillard och Bourdieu. Undersökningen har genomförts med kvalitativ fallstudie. Tre händelser har identifierats och kategoriserats i empirisk, definitiv och producerad händelse.

Less diversity and more homogenization in the media`s news range is the subject for our bachelor thesis. By analyzing and comparing three separate weeks in two of Sweden's largest evening newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen we wanted to discoverhow the diversity between the two newspapers had changed over the years, more precisely from 1993 until now. Had there been a homogenization or not? We wanted to study this because it is a long going debate about the news stories becoming more and more the same. An important debate because less diversity in news events and news presentation may lead to less diversity in public opinions and knowledge.

The purpose of the thesis is to examine the relation between art, politics and ideology in contemporary art, focusing on the drawings depicting Mohammed the prophet as a dog, made by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks. His work is contextual in accordance with current art practice, thus letting everything related to the artwork become part of it, a circumstance the thesis tries to grasp in the widest respect possible. The drawings were published and spread throughout Swedish media, where they were later defended and criticized by a number of writers. Many debaters argued that the art work represents Western freedom of speech, and that to criticize them is to criticize fundamental democratic rights. This discourse tended to disqualify all arguments that questioned why such force was put into defending and spreading offensive pictures.

This paper treats the question about how the internationally established company, Apple, is affected by intern or extern events when it comes to the trade market. The purpose of the study is to investigate if chosen events create abnormal return on Apples stock market. The chosen research area is Steve Jobs three sick-listings, It-bubble and the purchase of the search engine company Siri. The reason of writing about this is the big interest for the stock market and its function.This study methodological starting position is quantitative done by an event study, with qualitative feature done by an interview with an expertise within this area. When analyzing the empirics, we have used the efficient market theory that says that information should not affect the stock market in the degree that abnormal return creates.

This is a study of how democracy is affected by regionalization. The study focuses on values related to the democracy; these values are representative, transparency, participation, anchoring of decisions and accountability. The case study for this essay is the Regional Development Council of Värmland case study of Region Värmland.1997 a proposition was put forward the Swedish government about changes in responsibilities regarding four Swedish counties. It was decided that Kalmar, Gotland, Skåne and Västra Götaland County would be part of pilot project with extended regional autonomy.Region Värmland was formed at 2001 as a Region Development Council and was at 2007 transformed to a co-cooperative body. Region Värmland has an indirectly elected council, i.e.

This thesis intends to analyse conditions for a successful implementation of consociational democracy, as a democratic model in Afghanistan. The lack of critical reviews regarding the democratisation-process in Afghanistan initiated the purpose of this study.Lijpharts democracy model was used as the basis in the comparative study. Along with empirical evidence regarding how the complex process of democracy in Afghanistan is progressing, the study investigated whether the identified conditions occurred or not.The choice of which democracy model to use can be crucial for the democratic possibilities to even survive and become established in conflict-affected communities. The principle of consociational democracy is that it is an empirically based normative model that aims to organise the state in a way that works against the risks of majority domination and oppression against the minority.The empirical case study revealed that a majority of the conditions were not met, which then can counteract the possibilities for consociational democracy in Afghanistan. The study has critically examined the prospects for the success of consociational democracy in Afghanistan, and it can be assessed that there is a limited probability for a successful applying of this model..

Essay in political science, C-level by Mikael GranathAutumn semester 2012, Tutor: Freddy Kjellström- Ideological convergence in Swedish party politics?- An analysis of ideologies of the Swedish Social Democratic party and the Swedish Moderateparty and their healthcare and health service policies between the years of 2002 and 2010.The main purpose of this study is to examine the truthfulness in the common perception thatthe Swedish moderate party and the Swedish social democratic party are increasingly sharingthe same political views - particularly between the years of 2002 and 2010. The main researchquestion is:?Did the Swedish Moderate party and the Swedish Social Democratic partyideologically position themselves closer in the year of 2002 than they did in 2010within the health care policy area?The research design chosen for this study can be labelled as a comparative case study wherethe two political parties party programs and election manifestos that were current in the yearof 2002 and 2010 are studied. This is done to give a better view of ideological change.

News value is an essential part of which event media chooses to report about. Political events consider to bee news with potentional large value. Media has an enormous power and possibility to create news and construct there own reality and where the readers is given a false expression of what really happened. Today the media must show profit and that indirect affects how the media choose to describe political events. In the Kenya case is it therefore possible to draw the conclusion that the two news paper has different construction of the political event in Kenya.

In contemporary Sweden political participation among foreign-born Swedes is viewed as low and it is well known that foreign-born individuals do not use their voting rights to the same extent as the general population. At the same time there are numerous ethnic associations around the country who work with various activities involving political, democratic and integration issues. This study aims to study how four members of a Somali association regard, relate to and work with politics, democracy and integration. The study is based on these four people, but also on their relationship with authorities and other agencies in the community. The conclusion of this study shows in brief that the desire to participate politically is great, but that democracy and politics is accessible to all, depending on the level of language skills and what political knowledge the individual has.

From a democratic point of view the existing organisation with municipality sections in the city of Malmö, Sweden will be examined. The matter of how an alternative organisation should be structured will also be discussed. Two incompatible models of democracy theories will be arranged: libertarian democracy and participation democracy. The intentions with the reform were primary to increase the civic participation. By applying those values that are used to characterize participation democracy it will be shown whether the local participation has actually increased.

During our teacher training, focusing on history and Swedish at further education level, we have noticed a discrepancy in the way history is portrayed in further education and higher education literature. Accounts of historical ideas, events and developments have often wrongly been depicted as non-gender specific, that is, of equal relevance to both men and women. To what extent is it made clear in further education textbooks that Rousseau?s treatise on education was exclusively aimed at the male gender, and how are the gender-specific aspects of his ideas described? What role and space are set aside for women in the accounts of the struggle for the universal right to vote in Sweden at the turn of the century in 1900, and how is the unions? initial exclusion of female workers portrayed? Focusing on the above historical events and developments, this study aimes to examine whether or not gender-specific issues are described as gender neutral in a selection of history textbooks for further education published in Sweden between 1982 and 2003..

The purpose of this paper is to juxtapose the theories of learning that are reflected in student?s perspectives of the learning log with that of the pedagogical intentions of the curriculum in order to examine the discrepancy between the experienced and the intentional learning objectives. The paper is divided into two sections. The first section is a literature survey on theories related to the learning log and the curriculum. The second part is constituted by three semi-structured group interviews concerning student´s views on the learning log.

AbstractSierra Leone is a very poor country in Africa. Botswana is another country, that has a similar history and the same deposit; diamonds. Botswana has reached economic growth and democracy and Sierra Leone has not.The purpose with this study is to explain why Botswana is more democratic and has reached a better result economic than Sierra Leone.The questions in this study are:What explains the democratic and the economic results in Sierra Leone and Botswana?* Dahl?s institutions that furthers a polyarchy?* Gunnarsson?s and Rojas? institutional explanations?* Diamond?s and Morlino?s ?rule of law??* Other explanations or a combination of the above-mentioned explanations?The method that has been used in this study is a comparative case study with a qualitative contents analysis. The result is that it?s hard to say that one explanation is the right one.

Partly due to its consequences on the physical and mental health but also because of women?s constant fear of being violated, rape is considered to be a public health issue. The theoretical aspects of rape were first discussed in the 1970?s mainly from the viewpoints of Susan Brownmiller and Michel Foucault. The aim of this literature study is to investigate the different perspectives on whether rape should be viewed as sex or violence, how the controversy has developed and what the authors claim that the different perspectives result in.