The purpose of this Master Thesis is to compare two American novel suites for young women, Louisa May Alcott?s Little Women and Good Wives to Ann Brashares series of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The social status of women and children in the US during the 19th century is analyzed and compared historically and literary with the situation 130 years later.The main question is, what differences exist in the books and is there a connection between the changes in society and literature?The method of this Master Thesis is to make a comparative narratological analysis placed in a historical context.The result shows that the multiple character remains and enhances the identification process. Motherhood in the works of Alcott is prominent, whereas in the works of Brashares, sisterhood replaces motherhood.In Alcott?s US during the 19th century, Christian faith was in the foreground.

The purpose of this study is to perform a description of how parents experience their life in a stepfamily and to examine how the parents experience the involvement from their new partner in the children?s upbringing. The issues are: (i) which expectations do the parent has on their new partner in the role as stepparent to the child, (ii) how active does the parent experience their new partners? step parenting concerning the stepchild and (iii) how does the parent expect the new family to take shape? A qualitative study has been done through interviews. The participants were sex biological parents, of which four were fathers and two mothers.

Background: In Sweden and Norway planned home birth is not included in the health care system. In Denmark women with expected low risk birth have the right to choose home birth. Registrations of home births in the Nordic countries are not completed and women?s experiences of planned home birth in Scandinavian context are not earlier described.Objective: The aim of this study was to describe women?s experiences of planned home birth in the Scandinavian countries.Design: Inductive content analysis. Fifty-three Scandinavian women who have experienced planned home birth have replied an open question in a questionnaire.

Middle managers in social care find themselves in a middle position. The middle management position involves demands from several interested parties. The demands affect and generate feelings both within themselves and within others and the middle managers have to deal with them all.The aim of this study was to investigate the social care middle manager?s personal experiences of emotions in work.We have completed interviews with four middle managers who are assigned to carry out social care. When doing the interviews we used an interview guide divided into different interview areas.

The aim of this study is to gain an increased knowledge and deeper understanding of compulsive gambling and its consequences in today?s society. Gambling addiction will be described and analysed by a selection of experts, therapists and people with an addictive gambling background. The basis of the empirical research has been undertaken by a qualitative design with interviews consisting of three fundamental themes. The research group of eight participants included four gamblers, two therapists and two specialists.

The aim of this study was to understand how three selected football associations in three counties in Sweden work to include children and adolescents with disability in the age of 7-20 in their organization.  For this study we have used a qualitative method. The data have been collected through using semi-structured interviews with coaches and representatives from the board. When analyzing the data, we used Charles Tilly's theory Durable Inequality and research within the area of inclusion within sports, the significance of activities and the inequality within sports. The conclusions of the study showed that there was a stated lack of knowledge in the associations when it comes to their work with young people with disabilities and also in their work with the policies.

The purpose of this study has been to examine what approach and experience pedagogues at pre-schools, with a limited amount of nationalities, have regarding cultural promoting work in pre-schools. The concept ?cultural promoting? mainly regards the children's cultural backgrounds. The first question formulation focussed on the what the concepts ?cultural promoting? and ?cultural diversity? meant to the pedagogues.

The purpose of this literature study was to describe how patients experience their quality of life while undergoing a pacemaker implantation. Searches were carried out in the databases Academic Search Elite, Ebsco Host, Pub Med, Pub Med Central, Science Direct and manually. Keywords used were quality of life, treatment outcomes, emotions, pacing and life. This resulted in nineteen peer rewieved articles that were selected for the study results. The results showed that patients undergoing a pacemaker implantation experienced an improvement in their physical health with increased functional status, more energy and strength.

Alla elever i grundskolan, ska sedan januari 2006, ha en individuell utvecklingsplan vars syfte främst är att stödja elevers måluppfyllelse, enligt de nationella styrdokumen-ten. I Skolverkets allmänna råd (2005) anges att elever såväl som föräldrar ska ges del-aktighet och inflytande över arbetet med IUP. Vi har en uppfattning om att en samver-kansprocess, mellan lärare, elev och föräldrar, kring arbetet med IUP är av vikt för att eleven ska nå ökad måluppfyllelse. Därför var syftet med studien att belysa hur elever och föräldrar uppfattar sin delaktighet i samverkansprocessen kring IUP samt hur lära-ren gör för att involvera elever och föräldrar i det arbetet. För att få en bild av hur sam-verkansprocessen kring den individuella utvecklingsplanen uppfattas av lärare, elever och föräldrar har såväl kvalitativa som kvantitativa metoder använts.

Alla elever i grundskolan, ska sedan januari 2006, ha en individuell utvecklingsplan vars syfte främst är att stödja elevers måluppfyllelse, enligt de nationella styrdokumen-ten. I Skolverkets allmänna råd (2005) anges att elever såväl som föräldrar ska ges del-aktighet och inflytande över arbetet med IUP. Vi har en uppfattning om att en samver-kansprocess, mellan lärare, elev och föräldrar, kring arbetet med IUP är av vikt för att eleven ska nå ökad måluppfyllelse. Därför var syftet med studien att belysa hur elever och föräldrar uppfattar sin delaktighet i samverkansprocessen kring IUP samt hur lära-ren gör för att involvera elever och föräldrar i det arbetet. För att få en bild av hur sam-verkansprocessen kring den individuella utvecklingsplanen uppfattas av lärare, elever och föräldrar har såväl kvalitativa som kvantitativa metoder använts.

The objective of this study was trying to understand bullying focusing on the bully. The questions at issue were: What can contribute in the making of a bully? What are the benefits and losses in bullying? What are the former bullies? thoughts on bullying, now in comparison to in their youth. This was investigated with a qualitative approach from a former bullys perspective, hence three former bullies were interviewed. The result was presented in themes and was then analysed from a social psychological and social constructionist perspective.

The main purpose of this study was to examine how people who have felt mentally bad, describe their subjective experience of what leads to a mental well-being. The overall research questions were; how does the individual define mental well-being, how does the individual describe the turning-point during her tough period, and in what way does the individual consider that her own effort has influenced her well-being? In order to answer these questions, qualitative research interviews were conducted with persons who?ve felt mentally bad and who?ve got some kind of professional help, and who think that they have a mental well-being today. The empirical material was analyzed from a theoretical resilience perspective. The study?s result showed first of all, that there are different ways to define well-being.

Objective: To study the evidence on physical activity (PA) as an effective preventive strategy for depression.Methods: A search of electronic databases was performed for articles between 2007 and 2012, both original research and review articles, concerning the link between PA and depression on children, youth and adults. Three reviews, five longitudinal and two cross sectional studies were included.Results:  PA reduced the likelihood of depression in many studies and a sedentary or inactive lifestyle increased the risks for mental health symptoms such as depression. One study showed that low PA in childhood increased the odds of depression as an adult and other studies on teenagers saw a connection and mediation between PA and self-esteem whereas physical fitness showed no mediating effect. Many of the studies and reviews point out the insecurity regarding the dose-response association and the difficulties in defining causality.Conclusion: PA might have a preventive effect on depression. Some evidence exist to support that PA in childhood prevents depression in adults.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how librarians and family historians experience their interaction at the reference encounter, what influences these views and how they affect the service; whether the family historians are aware of these views; which subject knowledge is needed and how this knowledge affects work performance; if there is a need for continuing education, and finally, if the family historians themselves can work as a resource for the library or the librarians? The thesis consists of three parts; in the first a theoretical frame was constructed around the concepts service, continuing education, subject knowledge and attitudes. Role theory was used as a theoretical background to show how expectations influence professional roles. The second part consists of the results given from the qualitative interviews with librarians and surveys with family historians that were performed. In the last part a discussion from the theoretical and empirical information earlier received was made.

Middle managers in social care find themselves in a middle position. The middle management position involves demands from several interested parties. The demands affect and generate feelings both within themselves and within others and the middle managers have to deal with them all.The aim of this study was to investigate the social care middle manager?s personal experiences of emotions in work.We have completed interviews with four middle managers who are assigned to carry out social care. When doing the interviews we used an interview guide divided into different interview areas.