The aim of this study is to illustrate, and analyze how social workers are able to more effectively pursue operative possibilities within their own particular organizations. The main question concerning this issue is: How are social workers, working within the same district organization able to realise any potential for co-operation with other social workers, in different locales and units, yet working within the same organization? Following on from this question, further issues arise such as: 1. How do the varying demands of the clients affect the workload of the social worker? 2.

The aim with this essay was that on the basis of the care staff?s interpretations study how the unaccompanied refugee children consider cultural differences in the Swedish society and how it influenced the children. The study was carried out through six qualitative interviews with care workers at a municipal group accommodation for unaccompanied refugee children in the south of Sweden. The individual interviews were semi-structured and built on a list of questions with different subjects that were linked to the aim and question formulation for the essay. The analysis was carried out from Lazarus theory about coping and Antonovsky?s theory about ?SOC?, sense of coherence, with focus on the three components, comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness.

The overall aim of this study is to investigate how social workers who are dealing with financial assistance are experiencing discretion in their daily work. The aim of the study is also to examine how social workers who are dealing with financial assistance relates to the controlling and the supporting functions of their daily work and how this in turn affects the attitude to the client. In order to examine the aim of the study, qualitative method was used. Eight social workers have been interviewed and presented with two fictitious cases that they have been able to discuss. Theories regarding the street-level bureaucrat and its discretion have been used to interpret and understand the collected material.

The purpose with this paper is to examine whether other peoples opinions of a song and an artist influences an individuals own opinions of the song and artist. Through a quantitative study we seek to study whether such an influence exists and if it does, how strong that influence is. The study began with a pretest to examine whether differences existed when we manipulated our independent variable, how many times the song has been played at Myspace.com. Subsequently we performed a quantitative study by handing out surveys to students at Stockholm School of Economics on two different occasions. Our results show no significant differences in attitude or intentions when the amount of times the song has been played at Myspace.com is manipulated.

The present study deals with the scope of action available to a social worker when analyzing, assessing and proposing measures regarding young persons experiencing social problems. The interest in the subject area emanates from the fact that the number of youth placed in different forms of round the clock out-of-home care in Sweden increases, whereas research in the subject shows that such placement gives few positive results and sometimes even has negative consequences for their development.The study investigates how the preconditions of the social worker influence their scope of possible action, in particular as regards their place of work, the situation of the individual dealt with, and the profession itself being one based both on scientific evidence and knowledge gained by experience. Lipsky?s theory on ?street-level bureaucracy? and Hasenfelds theory on human servicing organizations form the theoretical framework of the present study. The empirical input comes from interviews with focus groups of active social workers.The analysis of the interviews shows that social workers generally feel that they have a broad scope of action as far as the regulatory framework and office management are concerned.

Taiwan has over the past thirty years experienced a substantial political transformation. Being ruled by Chinese nationalists since World War II, Taiwan started its democratic transition in the late eighties. The new democratic system did not only provide people with freedom to vote, it also marked the beginning of a search for a new national identity. Based on the international theory of constructivism, this paper defines and studies the Taiwanese people?s progression away from a dominant Chinese national identity towards a uniquely defined Taiwanese identity.

Human capital is professional service firms' most valuable resource and its quality is closely linked to the quality of its services. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professional service firms appraise their employees. A comparative study between an architecture firm and a management consulting firm is conducted with the aim to identify and explain similarities and differences in performance appraisal. Two qualitative case studies are performed and interviews as well as documents are used to explore the area. The thesis builds on a critical perspective and it has an explorative approach.

In the year 1800, about 5 % of the world population lived in cities (World Wide Fund for Nature, 2012, 3). Today that number is about 70 % in Europe and North America, and in 2050 it is expected to be 86 % in the developed world and 67 % in the developing world (www, UN, 2009). In addition, the global population is expected to increase with 2.2 billion people until 2050. As a result of the population increase more food has to be produced which requires more transport from the countryside to the cities. However, this flow of resources faces some difficulties.

The focus of our study was to examine personal assistants and group home assistants experiences of stress at work, how they cope with stress and how it affects the relationship with the care recipient. The study is made out of a qualitative frame and based on interviews with two personal assistants and four group home assistants. Our theoretical perspectives consist of Aaron Antonovsky?s SOC theory, Richard Lazarus theory about coping and also sociologist Johan Asplund?s theory about social interaction. The result indicates that the experiences of stress are individual and varied among the participants while the presence of stress at work is a shared apprehension.

The aim of this study was; from a group of boys and girls description and interpretation of interaction with other young people, personnel and the environment of the youth centre illuminate how the social gender are constructed and maintained at the youth centre. In this study we have tried to analyse the phenomena from an intersectionalistic perspective. Except gender, the analytic category social class have been tried to capture. Our theoretical standing point is social constructivism. Institutionalized structures in our society are constructed by humans, gender is not only a biological construction it is also a man created construction.

Despite the fact that society is investing substantial resources in individuals not to relapse into crime, then relapse is still a large percentage of new crimes. Crime is something that all societies are dealing with and at all social levels. By punishing individuals they are excluded from the society. This serves as a form of social control. It has been shown that there is no solution to the problem.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how social workers who worked with financial assistance perceived their work situation and the impact work-related stress had on their health and quality of work. Further, the study intended to find out if they felt that they received support from their employer that could prevent stress-related sick leave. The following two research questions were to be answered: In what way does work-related stress affect social workers? health and job quality according to their own experience? What kind of support and help experienced social workers were available within their organization? To receive answers to the questions semi-structured interviews with five social workers were conducted, analyzed and interpreted. The results showed that when social workers have a heavy case burden, high stress and a risk of deteriorated job quality occurred.

The objective of this study was investigating social worker?s perspective of how alcohol consumption can affect, and what elements in the social environment that may be of significance for, alcohol consumption and development of identity. The questions at issue were: Do social workers experience any positive effects from alcohol consumption in 16-17 year-old girls with problematic alcohol consumption and what influence do the effects have on self esteem, self image and development of identity? What do social workers experience are the negative effects from alcohol consumption on self esteem, self image and development of identity? How important do social workers find the social environment and how do they believe the social environment affect the alcohol consumption and development of identity? This was investigated with a qualitative approach from a social worker?s perspective, hence social workers were interviewed. The study?s theoretical basis was Symbolic Interactionism and Erikson?s theory of Psychosocial Development.

The aim of this study was to explore how social workers interpret the part of the Swedish social services act that regulates each municipality?s responsibility of the people staying in it. The study?s general methodological approach connects to sociology of law. The research questions were: (1) What factors are considered important by the social workers in assessments of responsible municipality? (2) Are there variations in the assessments of responsible municipality and in that case; how can the variations be explained? (3) What discretion do the social workers consider that they have in assessments of responsible municipality? Previous studies have found considerable differences in professional social work assessments in Sweden.

The aim of this thesis is to describe the rise of the Tea Party movement in the United States. By using a known theory within social movement studies, the political process theory, this thesis look into the factors that could have played a role in the rise and fast mobilization of the Tea Party movement. The political process theory consists of three parts and hence looks into both the political structure of, in this case, the United States, how mobilizing structures have been used and into the cultural framing used by the Tea Party to create their identity. In order to bring structure to the thesis, the three theory parts have been transformed into analysis models. These give a very good idea of all the factors that could have played a part and therefore also a good way to describe the rise of the Tea Party movement.The research confirm what the political process theory says, that the Tea Party movements rise came at a time when there were a mix of factors at play, both structural and cultural, creating an opportunity that the Tea Party took.