With the starting point in UN peacekeeping operations, this essay investigates the participation of the Swedish armed forces and how the Swedish soldiers perceive their role in those operations. The aim of the study was to explore different perceptions about the Swedish soldiers in international operations. Partly from the Swedish soldiers perspective and how they perceived their own role as soldiers. Partly from the perspective of civilians, like Swedish aid workers, and how they perceive the Swedish soldiers. The third perspective was from a person with mixed experiences from both the military and the civilian work.

This paper provides a study about human trafficking with sexual motives performed in European states and the measures taken from national, international and Non-Governmental organizations with the purpose to oppose human trafficking. According to the UN human trafficking has increased and shows tendencies to continue escalating, regardless of the measures taken by various organisations. In this study, four countries with associations to human trafficking have been chosen and organisations related to these countries are studied. The purpose is to inquire into how these organisations work against human trafficking and which objectives and guidelines these organisations strive for together with their values. The aim is to find out which result the organizations efforts gets and if, according to my hypothesis, the efforts oppose themselves.

This study is conducted from qualitative research with interviews as a basis, where I have interviewed four teachers from elementary school?s early ages (year 1-3). The aim is to highlight the teacher?s perspectives and experiences of reading aloud, and how they connect the activity to gender.The questions at issue that have been answered in this paper are how the teacher?s reflect to gender and reading aloud in a school environment; do the teacher?s reflect over the gender perspective when choosing reading aloud literature? When reading aloud, which attributes are important to highlight for girls and boys according to the teachers? Which books do the teachers consider "good" gender literature?The paper is based on the theoretical grounds of social constructivism, gender as construction, gender conscious pedagogy and reading aloud. In previous research the focal point has been Kåreland?s study on gender in literature in pre-school, and on how children are being portrayed in children?s literature today, from a gender perspective.The teacher?s that have been interviewed in this study all agreed on the fact that reading aloud is a very important part of education and are used by most teachers on a daily basis.

The explosion of new digital media puts pressure for developments within copyright law both in Sweden and internationally. These developments are taking place on two different international areas: (1) WIPO which is a part of the UN family and (2) the EU where a new directive on copyright law is being prepared and probably implemented during 2001. The aim of this thesis is twofold: (1) to study which considerations libraries must make when handling the new digital media both under today's copyright laws and under those which are being developed internationally. (2) What will be the consequences, for Swedish libraries, if the new EU-directive on copyright law is implemented in Sweden? By analysing current copyright laws, international treaties and the proposal for a new EU-directive as well as the national debate the thesis brings attention to a number of central issues for libraries.

A film can attract all kinds of emotions and moods of the audience through its audiovisual communications and cinematic expression, in which music plays a significant role in both understanding and interpretation of film content.It is interesting to explore the musical significance and the emotional aspect of the film out of a media and communications perspective and visual communications perspective because it?s a subject that belongs to the communications of scientific discipline as film is a media text which is working both as communicative and as audio-visual medium with its expressive aspects.The purpose of this bachelor?s paper is to increase and deepen the understanding of music's function and significant role in context with its reinforcing sense of visual expression in film. More specifically, it aims to explore the musical value of the expressive aspect of the media text in form of film musical Les Misérables (2012), which has been transmedialised from the novel of the same name, referring to the sound, music and song in relation to the film's visual expression.The research questions are at the core of the essay study: "how is music used to reinforce the cinematic visual expression?" and "how can music signify the narrative and highlight the emotional aspect of the film?" The theoretical framework is based on some of the key scholars assumptions such as Michel Chion (1994) and Claudia Gorbman (1987), who share the same theoretical views that the soundtrack seems powerful when it expresses its participation in a scene?s emotional moods as the music follows the scene?s rhythm, the image?s flow and contributes emotional and musical codes of emotions and expressions. According to Chion sound and image interact together to tell a story where sound enrich the image with expressive and informative values.

Over the last few years, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the aid sector have grown and become important economic, social and political actors in Sweden. However this sector has also been hard criticized in terms of aid effectiveness. Church of Sweden (CoS), a well established organization in this sector, has faced new challenges in form of demands from their environment regarding reporting aid work. These demands have pushed the International Department of Church of Sweden into a process for adapting the structure in order to meet the new effectiveness requirements. Using both, Contingency Theory and Resource Dependence Theory as theoretical framework and a single case study as research strategy, this master thesis goes in deep into the description of the change of the structure of the International Department. This work shows how the different parts of the organization functions and what impact will these changes in the structure mean for the future of the organization. The analysis of the empirical evidence related to the theoretical framework shows that the organization responds to external demands through a more centralized structure than before.

The master's thesis investigates how the concept traditional knowledge is represented by international organizations that are influential in development work and policy making. Departing from a theoretical framework drawing on Michel Foucault, constructed aspects of knowledge and the power relations knowledge production implies are highlighted.A recent interest within library and information science and practice to document this kind of knowledge raises questions about how traditional knowledge differs from other forms of knowledge and how knowledge organizational tools can be applied. Investigations, which critically explore the concept traditional knowledge, the power relations the concept creates as well as the interests and purposes it serves, have been surprisingly absent within the discipline. The focus in this master's thesis is how traditional knowledge is conceptualized by international organizations. A discourse analytical approach reveals the power relations that are inherent in their descriptions of traditional knowledge and how they describe the relevance of the concept for their work.

Public participation is a key aspect in the planning of Swedish municipalities. It is probably the most important tool of them all in the planning towards a sustainable future within the cities and the municipalities as a whole. Participation from the public can take on several different forms. In this paper I focus to research and discuss in and around the usage of a web-based 3D platform called City Planner. The tool allows the user (the public) to view the municipalities planning in a fairly new (but quickly growing) environment.

Sweden experienced a decline in exports of 16 percent in the period after the financial crisis. The decline has created a lot of question marks regarding the traditional exports which has started a process with the aim of finding Sweden?s next cash cow in export.Sweden adopted stringent environmental laws early which positioned them as a strong nation in environmental awareness. The stringent environmental legislation meant that the Swedish companies were required to minimize the environmental impact, which created a demand for eco-efficient products. Despite the early demand for eco-efficient products, the international success of the Swedish cleantech companies has been modest.The government can increase firms international competitiveness by encouraging, supporting and promoting activities on the domestic market.

This essay focus on the European Union and its democracy both from a national perspec­tive and from an international perspective. Furthermore, the essay center on the con­cept of democratic deficit, this in order to study the European Union´s status regarding the democratic legitimacy. This study intends to nuance the problems that previous research and previous researchers have de­fined as democratic deficits in the European Union and ends up in conducting a textual anal­ysis of the latest European Union treaty, the Lisbon Treaty.The aim is that by using previous research on the democratic deficit in the European Union examine whether the Lisbon Treaty has enhanced the EU's position regarding democratic legitimacy. In other words, my study aims to identify what the deficit is and if it exists.The results show that the Lisbon Treaty has been trying to improve the democratic legitimacy and that some practical adjustments have been made, but it also show that there is much that still can be improved before citizens have full democratic rights..

The financial crisis in 2008, effected companies around the globe and forced them to change their operational strategies, in order to survive. Companies with international links needed to consider external effects and due to that adapt their strategies on a global level. Demands for goods and service were decreasing and companies could only manage the cost during a recession to not face bankruptcy. Organisations need to reconsider their optimal strategy as this will determine their future outcome when managing a crisis as the one in 2008. British Airways - Air Cargo is a global company with an international network which serves about 80 countries, with about 200 destinations.

The aim of this thesis is to map the intellectual base, and identify the general research interests, of Cultural Policy studies. In addition to this the thesis also aims to trace the uses of theoretical and conceptual approaches within the identified research interests. This is done by analysing citations from 130 articles published in the leading scientific journal International Journal of Cultural Policy between the years 2002-2007 using the bibliometric method author cocitation analysis (ACA). The results of the ACA confirm the overall notion that the research field of cultural policy studies is an ambiguous one, even when it?s studied with a quantitative method specialised in uncovering hidden structures within a given field as ACA.

The purpose of this study has been to investigate the views of five teachers on their own leadership, and on the way they make it work in the classroom. The method was a qualitative investigation consisting of separate interviews with five elementary school teachers from three different schools in the southern part of Stockholm. The results showed that a good pedagogic leadership, successful with the pupils, can be characterised as at the same time democratic and "situation adjustable". This includes the ability to formulate the rules of conduct clearly, to take decisions and to create a good working atmosphere in the classroom, so that the pupils can feel secure, and be able to learn and develop. That however, cannot be accomplished if the teacher only maintains a negative communication, reminding the pupils of what is forbidden.

The purpose of this study was to analyse the concept of empowerment and its meaning in the political document "En Förnyad Folkhälsopolitik" from the present Swedish government, containing guidelines and politics in the area of public health. The underlying question was if it could be considered as representative for some kind of general "empowerment approach" since the concept is central to the very definition of social work by the International Federation of Social Workers IFSW and International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW).By comparing its definition and consequences in the document with a historical review of different contexts of empowerment the conclusion was made that such a common approach doesn´t exist at all. The meaning of empowerment in the central document showed some similarities with the "northamerican" version of the concept represented by the social scientist Charles Murray, which is just one of the political meanings of empowerment. Alternative ways of understanding the concept was also presented such as being a tool of a constant conflict between central political principles or as a fashionable but not important word. Another alternative was to consider it a means of power through witch different political discourses tries to dominate the world..

År 2004, införde Sverige revisionsstandarden RS, Revision i Sverige, vilket grundade sig i det dåvarande ISA (International Standards on Auditing) som gavs ut av det internationella revisorsorganet IFAC, International Federation of Accountants. Från om med den 1 januari 2011 införde Sverige tillämpningen av den internationella revisionsstandarden ISA (International Standards on Auditing) fullt ut. Denna standard innebär en del förändringar som måste införas i revisionen. Vi har i denna studie främst fokuserat på de förändringar som skett i revisionsberättelsen.  Dessa förändringar innebär att revisionsberättelsen fått ett annorlunda utseende och att revisorernas term, ?hög men inte absolut säkerhet?, ersatts med termen ?rimlig säkerhet?.