New family stuctures are constantly emerging in society. Are these changes mirrored in foster care practice? The aim of this study was to explore to what extent homosexual families are represented when a child is given a foster home. The nuclear family has throughout history been assured a stable position both in society as well as in the foster care practice. During the last ten years a homosexual relationship has been legaly accepted through different amendents and it has also been more integrated and accepted in society.

The aim of this study was to explore how six men who run a micro-enterprisewith a maximum of 10 employees handle the balance between work and otherlife. Qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews was conducted and thesample consisted of six men with micro-enterprises of varying ages. The themesused in the interviews were boundless work, roles, boundaries strategies anddemand / control - social support. The results showed that micro- entrepreneursdo not experience any major imbalance between work and other life. The studyrevealed that the division of roles in the home of the elderly respondents was ofthe classical gender character that woman took great responsibility in the home.Among the younger respondents the unpaid work at home was equal divided.Social support was perceived highly by all respondents, and they alsoexperienced a high level of control over the requirements of the job.

The purpose of this study was to examine how young managers (26-32 years old) in municipal old-age care organizations, in Skåne and Blekinge, experience their professional roles as managers in relation to their age. One of the questions asked in this study was whether managers experienced that their age affected their managerial position, and in that case, how? In order to investigate this, a qualitative method was used, including interviews and observations. Seven interviews with young managers were conducted. My approach in the working process was influenced by Grounded theory as defined by Glaser and Strauss (1968).

The purpose of this study was to investigate the levels of social distance used by the librarians and users in the virtual reference interview. With a conversational analysis and applied politeness theory 49 chat transcripts where analysed in order to answer the question of how the interlocutors positioned themselves regarding the social distance between them. By identifying what communicative strategies where used the following results were found. Generally the social distance between librarians and users is low in the Swedish virtual reference interview. Even though both parties used informal and casual language the results indicate that the librarians face wants were valued slightly higher than the users which were illustrated by a some what higher social distance in the stages of the conversations when the librarians face was under most threat.

Human Resource Management (HRM) handlar om att leda mänskliga resurser. Det blir det allt vanligare att personalansvaret delegeras till linjecheferna i organisationen eftersom de arbetar närmast de anställda. Syftet med denna studie var att med kvalitativ metod undersöka på vilket sätt chefers arbetssituation skiljer sig åt mellan de som har, respektive inte har, en HR-avdelning att tillgå. Studien baserades på nio enskilda intervjuer vilka tolkades enligt induktiv tematisk analysmetod. Resultatet visade att personalarbetet var mer integrerat i det dagliga chefsarbetet på företag som hade HR-avdelning, och dessa chefer kände sig inte stressade av personalansvaret i sig.

Our purpose with this essay is to examine how staff that works with drugaddicts in compulsory-treatment institutions for women and men uses gender in their work. We are trying to get knowledge and understand how the staff is using their own and the client's gender in the work that they are doing. We have chosen to take focus within women's care in institutions and compare if the work is done in the same way with male clients.Our essay is based on interviews with treatment-staff. We have used a qualitative method. The interviews are made with both men and women.

AbstractThe purpose of my study was to examine how four social studies teachers in upper secondary school interprets the democratic educational mission and core values, and if they believe that the same values are tools to influence the students' democratic approach and if they think it is possible. It is also the study's minor purpose to make an analysis of my findings and previous research in the area to explain any similarities or differences in the social studies teacher's interpretation and practice of the democratic educational mission and core values. I used qualitative semi-structured interviews as a method in which the interview questions were based on my research questions. The two criteria I had for my sample of respondents was that there would be social studies teacher at a upper secondary school and that I wanted to have two of each sex. Their interpretation and how they think they practice the democratic educational mission and core values are similar.

In this essay, I have studied the image of the drug abusing mother and her motherhood as seen in some of the social science literature on drug abusing women. This I did with a qualitative research design and with the questions:How is the drug abusing mother and her motherhood portrayed by social scientists?What signification is her motherhood given in her life by the researchers?What approach towards the drug abusing mother in the research process, and hence in the creation of the images of her, does the scientists have?I found that there are distinct patterns and themes in the research on mothers with a drug abuse. The researchers studied the women with the goal to understand them and to give them the opportunity to speak for themselves through the researcher. The drug abusing mother is in short portrayed as a woman who cares for her children, whose motherhood is one of the most important factors in her life and who is anxious that her substance abuse should not threaten it.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how staff at secondary schools are thinking and reasoning about notifications to social services based on norm breaking behaviors in students. To find this out five qualitative interviews has been made with counselors in two public schools and three private schools in Örebro län. The results show that there is no clear definition of what norm breaking behavior is which making the reasoning difficult. There are clear procedures for the staff to dealing with norm breaking behaviors but they do not know when they will be applied. The decision to report behavior to the social service is usually not taken individually, it is a result of several people?s views and experiences.

This essay is a study of the use of IT technology by teachers of English and History at a Swedish upper secondary school. It is based on four interviews and four observations. In my analysis of these I have made use of the theory of Social Shaping of technology, a theory which puts emphasis on a teacher´s purpose regarding the use of IT technology in order to empower the teaching process. As a researcher I aim to explore the reasoning on the part of the teacher and to that end I use the method of interviews and observations. This study shows different ways of using IT technology varying from one teacher to another.

How do probation inspectors describe their female clients and female offenders? Are there any discrepancies in treatment between male and female clients? In what way is the social interaction between female clients and inspectors constructed and described?  These are the issues we have explored in this study. Qualitative semi-structured interviews with a total of nine probation inspectors; six women and three men, were used in order to examine the probation inspectors? constructions of clients and the construction of interaction between them. By applying Foucault?s theory of power relations, Hirdman?s gender theory and Olsson?s theory of preconceptions when analyzing the results five themes were identified; descriptions of the work of the female client, descriptions of the interaction with the female client, descriptions of the female offender, descriptions of backgrounds why women commit crimes and descriptions of society's view on the female offender.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine what intentions handbooks, laws and regulations have had about children and childrens literature, as we think that they can serve as guiding principles for childrens libraries in Sweden. The questions are: what signals have the childrens libraries got from the documents concerning the view of children and childrens literature during the 20th century? What has the social opinion about children been during the 20th century? How have children been seen during the 20th century? The method we used is a qualitative source analysis of mention above documents seen from a hermeneutical point of view. This analysis is woven together with the social opinion on children during the 20th century. Our results show that the aim of childrens literature before 1945 was a pedagogic and moral one.

Hemmasittare is a new term for children and youths with a history of long term truancy. As the term indicates these youths spend most of their time in their homes. This often results in them being socially alienated and the loss of their earlier social network. The consequences of hemmasittande and social alienation are many and include not only a deficient social network but also psychological and physical problems. Research has shown that many of these problems follow on through into adult life.

Because of the increasing numbers of international tourist arrivals each year it is essential that tourist operators are aware of the impacts that tourism generate. Tourism affects the world in an environmental, social and economic way, positive but also in a negative way. To travel responsible and sustainable is therefore important, and operators have a responsibility in this subject.Because of this I wanted to look at how Swedish tourist operators manage responsible tourism, together with what amount of information their customers receive about this. To be able to study how operators work with this I conducted three interviews via email. The tourist operators were of different sizes and specializations to receive a more extensive result.

The focus of this thesis is on what is considered to be a suitable foster home. For the study to be carried out an application had to be made to get access to the foster home assessments in a medium-sized municipality in Sweden. With the support of attachment theory and theory of standards different categories have been picked out and analyzed in foster home assessements that have been approved. The conclusion to what is considered to be a suitable foster home is a complex issue, as there are many factors that are interacting. Social workers seem to focus on the importance of a family?s ability to provide some kind of stability and security for a child who is considered to be placed within their home.