The main purpose of this C-essay is to answer the question: What have been the consequences and effects of the merit point system on language studies and the parties concerned (teachers, students and principals) during the school year of 2010/11?The merit point system is the result of a political decision and was implicated for the first time in the Swedish upper secondary school during the school year 2010/2011. Being a completely new phenomenon it is of great interest and importance to study its effects.The study in this essay also aims to verify, falsify or nullify two hypotheses very often referred to in the political discussions regarding the merit point system:The merit point system will replace affection and interest as main reasons for language studies in upper secondary school and cause a rectification amongst the students choices of additional courses.The merit point system will have a segregating effect upon society and make it harder for people to rise in society through education in the future.A verification of these hypotheses would imply the appearance of an increased rectification amongst students as well as an orientation towards an in the future more segregated society.The empiric material has been collected and examined with qualitative as well as quantitative methods (questionnaires and interviews) and belongs epistemologically to the phenomenological and hermeneutical traditions..

Using a feministic perspective and a critical approach, my purpose is to discuss bibliographic classification, a central aspect of Library and Information Science. More specifically, my aim is to demonstrate the norms and the dominating thoughts regarding the organization and representation of knowledge, subjects, and social categories in classification systems. I review previous research involving critical approaches to classification. These show that classification systems are a reflection of the context in which they are created, with the result that universal assumptions can be questioned. Some studies also present problems inherent in hierarchical structures.

AbstractTitle: Anabolic Androgenic Steroids ? An analysis of how AAS is portrayed in Swedish media.Author: Jens SundénTutor: Philip LalanderKeywords: AAS, Anabolic steroids, social problems, media, drug abuse, genderThe purpose of this study was to investigate how Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS) are portrayed and described in the media, how AAS is constructed as a social problem, and how society in a social context uses knowledge and power for disciplinary and educational means. The study is based on the perception of AAS as a constructed social problem and analyzes the discourses surrounding AAS depicted in three Swedish newspapers. The sample was prepared on the basis that it represents different aspects of daily Swedish press. The method used in the paper is a discourse analysis with social constructivism and gender as theoretical tools used to analyze the sample material.

Populärmusik som vi känner den har de senaste 60 åren starkt fokuserat på mer än bara musiken. Ikoner som Elvis var bland de första som slog igenom stort där inte bara musiken utan ett ideal följde med i paketet. Denna trend har fortsatt genom åren med band som the Monkees som beskyllts för att inte ens spela musiken själva, David Bowie som starkt jobbade med image och presentation för att locka publik, Kiss som fortsatte på den trenden med mycket smink och explosiva scenframträdanden fram till idag då band som Kraftwerk och Daft Punk gått i en något liknande riktning. Fortfarande är det den yttre framställningen som är viktig men istället för att använda sig själva fokuserar man på virtuella och/eller mekaniska representationer.Men framställningen av sig själv behöver inte bara presenteras i ett enskilt medie utan kan avspeglas och föras fram i flera olika. På så sätt ges publiken utrymme att själva leta upp mer information genom att söka i flera olika medier.

The main purpose of this Bachelor´s thesis is to investigate the visions chief librarians have for their public libraries. The world around us and our way of living is changing as the society is changing ever more rapidly. This evolvement also influences the public library, its role for society and individuals, its activities and its design. The question is how the public library can face these changes and what function and role it can get and make for itself in the future. Through qualitative interviews with five chief librarians our aim is to answer the main question of this thesis: What are the visions that chief librarians on public libraries have for the public library´s future? This study also contain the role the chief librarians give the public library of today and what they mean is necessary for their visions to be achieved.

Hunting is considered as the most masculine activity in our society. Historically, man has been described as the provider for his family, this in the forms of hunting and gathering. Today hunting is still associated with a male hunter, but women have started to infiltrate the hunting culture. In this study hunting culture is analyzed with a gender perspective. In a modern society with gender and equality as a big subject of debate it is interesting to examine this impact on a culture so linked with masculinity.

When foreign children first arrive to Sweden, the first contact they get with the local society is through primary school. Therefore, the primary school have the fundamental role to attend the foreign and their families.The teacher plan for primary schools (Lpfö98) make it very clear that children with foreign background are given the full support in their development in a multicultural society. The aim of this report is to investigate how two pre-school teachers and one school counselors? work with these newly arrived children in preschool to support their integration in the preschool.As the role of the primary school is so vital for children with foreign background in this new society, I would therefore like to take the opportunity to explore and show how meaningful the role is of teachers to integrate these children into the Swedish primary schools.In this report, the theory part is treated based on integration and on the schools suspension to multicultural backgrounds. For this report, I even stress the support of the primary school and how they meet the foreign children and their families.

The case study investigates study association representatives? perspectives on the activities of the popular education within the social sector in Örebro and why they are organized. It further investigates the cooperation and dialogue between the study associations and the municipality of Örebro regarding this activity. The study is based on critical realism. A questionnaire survey was conducted among all ten study associations in Örebro, combined with qualitative interviews with representatives from six of the active associations.

This work applies intersectionality to five Somali women self-narratives and focuses on their identities and positions in Swedish society, but also their relation to Somali society. Since people constructs in relation to the environment, this work studies the impact of environmental confirmations of their own self. Intersectionality is brought into the social work with an operational attempt, and shows how critics of power and interplay between theories and empirics can provide new knowledge. Intersectionality also demands some alterations of the social constructionists? idea of the ego.

This thesis is based on thirteen qualitative interviews with civil servants and politicians. The purpose of the study is to research these informants? attitudes towards integration and their reflections about immigrants? lower chances in an ethnically segregated housing and labour market. The theoretical frame of references is based on social constructionism and focuses on including and excluding power structures. The empirical material provides both structural and cultural explanations to immigrants? problems as regards inclusion in Swedish society.

Integration projects at two libraries: multiculture, meetings and possibilities takes its start in the fact that Sweden is populated with people from many different nations. The libraries have a unique possibility to arrange integration projects as a supplier of culture and information. This case study focuses on two integration projects arranged by two libraries; the library of Jönköping with the project Brobyggarbiblioteken, and the library of Kortedala which was involved in the project Ordbron. My purpose is to find out how these two libraries chose to work with integration, migrants and multiculture. The aim is to examine if the library could function as a passway to the Swedish society, and to find out if the library can facilitate for migrants to maintain contact with their native country.

This thesis is dedicated to analysing the relationship between Islam and democracy and the role played by Civil Society in a process towards democracy. This theme is further elaborated through a comprehensive study of three modern Muslim intellectuals: Abdolkarim Soroush (Iran), Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), and Tariq Ramadan (Switzerland), and their thoughts about and views on Islam and democracy. Islam has often been portrayed in a stereotype manner where all forms of change are seen as impossible. The aim of this study is to go beyond this vision and instead focus one the role of Islam in processes of development and new forms of interpretation concerning democracy.The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the relationship between Islam and democracy.

This is a master thesis about the reconstruction of Bibliotheca Alexandrina. With a hermeutical approach utilizing literature review and interviews it examines how the library have come into existence, and what the Swedish efforts have been to help the project along. Using a mainly structural perspective, the major factors examined are world politics, Egyptian society and library values. The conclusion is that myths about the ancient library of Alexandria, the city of Alexandria itself, world politics, a more stable Egyptian society, improved world and Egyptian economy, an improved Egyptian reverence for reading and writing, less censorship, more freedom of speech and Egyptian national pride all have contributed to new library. Swedish efforts by Sida, the Swedish Institute in Alexandria, FAV and SWEBA have mainly been in the areas of information technology, education of Egyptian library staff and childrens literature..

The purpose of this study was to look into how learners of Swedish as a second language and some teachers of the subject think and reason about the choice between Swedish or Swedish as a Second Language and literature in Swedish at upper secondary schools. Similar studies have earlier been carried out at upper secondary schools in areas dominated by immigrants while the present study has been accomplished in a small municipality with comparatively few immigrants. The study is based upon qualitative interviews which have been analysed through the socio-cultural theory regarding those artifacts, communication and that mediating second learners of Swedish and their teachers and schools are using in their choices between Swedish or Swedish as a Second Language as well as selection of literature in literature teaching.  The study also shows how learners of Swedish as a second language perceive the choice between the two options of Swedish courses at advanced upper secondary school and how their teachers look upon their choice and the information given. Furthermore we will also get to know the learners of Swedish as a second language and their teachers? view on teaching Swedish literature at advanced upper secondary B-level in Swedish.

The aim of this study is to have a deeper understanding about the motivations and the obstacles of an immigrant?s language learning. I have studied the problem with focus on integration and language learning. The study is principally based on deep interviews with Turkish immigrants. I have studied the question by means of a socio-cultural perspective of learning; Mead?s conceptions I, Me and the generalised other; Scheff?s conception, the social bonds and Freire?s conception, dialog and Asplund?s conception social responsiveness.