Few scientific studies have studied the subject of longevity among horses over a longer period of time. The knowledge about the Swedish riding school horse population concerning injuries and diseases is insufficient. Generally speaking, riding school horses in Sweden have a more undiversified way to work and work more hours in the arena compared to privately owned horses that have more variety in their possible use. Statistical data from the insurance company Agria have shown that horses in riding schools and education facilities have 22 % higher risk to use their veterinary insurance and 79 % higher risk to be put down and use their life insurance, compared to horses in private care. To create an increased understanding for longevity is it important to have knowledge about the different causes of culling. The aim with this study is to increase the knowledge and enable problem solving within the subject of longevity, median length of life and causes of death.

New forms of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become more influential in development contexts. The concept of ?The Digital Divide? points at a large division between rich and poor countries regarding access to ICTs. Critics say that the debate concerning this topic for far too long has focused mainly on the technology itself rather than social factors which impact social inclusion and development. Scholars agree that ICTs holds a tremendous potential, but how is this implemented in development contexts and how can it be used with more sensitivity towards local preconditions and social aspects?This paper aims to examine how ICTs are being used in the context of development within an India based organisation for women called SEWA (Self Employed Women?s Association).

Background: The Swedish life-insurance business has been extensively criticised lately due to broken promises to customers as well as due to scandals that some companies within the business have been involved in. The companies within the Swedish life-insurance business find themselves in a so- called crisis of confidence, something that is created in and by media. A company that finds itself in a crisis of confidence somehow have to manage the situation and crises of confidence can also result in different kinds of changes. Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to explore and analyse how individual life- insurance companies manage crises of confidence. As a consequence, the aim is also to investigate in what way crises of confidence are initiators to change.

Background: The Swedish life-insurance business has been extensively criticised lately due to broken promises to customers as well as due to scandals that some companies within the business have been involved in. The companies within the Swedish life-insurance business find themselves in a so- called crisis of confidence, something that is created in and by media. A company that finds itself in a crisis of confidence somehow have to manage the situation and crises of confidence can also result in different kinds of changes. Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to explore and analyse how individual life- insurance companies manage crises of confidence. As a consequence, the aim is also to investigate in what way crises of confidence are initiators to change.

The aim of this study is to look how the Social Service has handled custody issues. The study has a legal and social aspect with a purpose to investigate how the law affects the social administration as well as the family. During a period of one year a quantitative and qualitative study was performed within the social administration in a nearby community. The study focus is partly on the relationship between the law, family and society. The main questions have been: Which one of the parents, mother or father, did in fact get the custody and why? How has the children?s point of view been reported in the inquiry? A child needs a well organized everyday life in a preferably conflict free environment.

This masters thesis aims at a discussion about whether the public library will be an educating and cultivating society institution in the future. The method used is a combination of interviews with library staff in leading position and studies of the public librarys relationship to cultivation and adult education in a changeable society. The work concentrates on two main questions. One is about what, and in which way, changes, that are important for the public library and that take place in society now or within the next ten years, affect the future activities of the library. The other is about the public librarys relationship to cultivation in general and in the future.

New forms of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become more influential in development contexts. The concept of ?The Digital Divide? points at a large division between rich and poor countries regarding access to ICTs. Critics say that the debate concerning this topic for far too long has focused mainly on the technology itself rather than social factors which impact social inclusion and development. Scholars agree that ICTs holds a tremendous potential, but how is this implemented in development contexts and how can it be used with more sensitivity towards local preconditions and social aspects?This paper aims to examine how ICTs are being used in the context of development within an India based organisation for women called SEWA (Self Employed Women?s Association).

The aim of the study was to reach a deeper understanding and knowledge about how women with an experience of prostitution perceive what this has meant for them and how it has influenced their lives. The questions of the study were: (1) How has the prostitution experience affected the women in their lives? (2) How have they learnt to deal with this experience? To answer these questions a qualitative method was used where interviews were conducted with four women with experience of prostitution. All women experienced that the prostitution had affected their lives. Examples given that inter alia relationships, sexuality, and self-image had been affected.

The purpose of this essay was to investigate the view of what kind of role the personal assistant has in disabled people´s life and sexlife and how conceptions of a "normal" life and "to live like others" can be identified related to this. My research questions was: What does the expression "to live like others" mean to the organisations? What is the view in the organisations of the personal assistant´s role in the client´s life? What is the view in the organisations of the personal assistant´s role in the client´s sexlife? What is the view in the organisations of disabled people´s rights to get assisted help with sex? I chose to do semistructured interviews with different organisations related to disability and assistance and I analysed the interviews with theoretical aspects of social constructivism, the principle of normalization and the theory of SRV (Social Role Valorization), autonomy, individualism and models of action. My main conclusion were that the views of disabled people´s sexuality and the personal assistant´s role in disabled people´s sexlife were widely separate. However, almost all of the organisations were pointing out the autonomy of the individual and the importance of setting the limits.

The purpose of this essay is to highlight the conceptions that exist in school towards homosexuality. My overall essay questions are: What rules does the school have to apply concerning homosexuality? What approach do the professors have towards young lesbian women and kind of support is offered to the group? In order to answer these questions I interviewed a professor and a young lesbian female. One of the surveys that has been made, as a normative order, about heterosexuality in the last decade is known as queer theory.One of the theories that in surveys investigates homosexuality as a normative order is known as ?queer theory? and it is the one I decided to use in this essay.Inspired by feminist research, gay and lesbian studies and the poststructuralist theory, the queertheory focuses on some peoples way of organizing sexuality is privileged, sanctioned and is perceived as normal, while others are seen as deviant, abnormal and therefore unwelcome.

AimThe purpose with our study has been to investigate if upper secondary high schools in the south of Sweden, Stockholm and north of Sweden follow the outdoor education regulations stated in the curriculum (Lpf-94). Moreover, we aim to study if the teachers? previous experiences as well as the students affect the outdoor education. Finally, the purpose is to find out how the outdoor-life-education can be improved. These are the research questions:o How do the chosen high schools follow the outdoor education regulations stated in Lpf-94?o What obstacles, advantages and differences exist between the outdoor-life-education in these high schools?o In what way do the teachers? outdoor life experiences influence their education at school?o How can the students influence the outdoor education in their High Schools?o How can outdoor education be improved?MethodThe study is based upon data collected from four interviews with PE ( physical education) teachers from four different high schools.

Extended Producer Responsibility (ERP) is a form of product take-back regulation that requires the producers to manage their products at the end of life. By internalising the products? entire life cycle costs into the market price the ultimate objective of such regulations is to reduce the environmental burden from the products. This Master´s thesis seeks to examine if the total life cycle cost of a product actually is borne by the producer, and if not, predict who will then take this cost. This is done by analysing the market for take-back activities in three different categories of products; electrical and electronic equipment, cars and wind power stations.

In the late 20th century the Soviet Union collapsed and the eastern European countries were freed from the communist Russian oppression. However, during the Soviet period Marxism was a recurring life stance in the Swedish textbooks for religious education in the gymnasieskola. Today the Soviet Union has collapsed, but the Marxist philosophy has had a huge effect on both single individuals and the modern society as a whole. Nonetheless, the Marxist life stance is nowadays often being replaced by other non- religious life stances in the textbooks of religious education.Therefore, this analysis is a hermeneutic study of the presentation of the Marxist life stance in textbooks for Swedish religious education. The purpose of the paper is to investigate how these textbooks portray the Marxist life stance, and to prove that the societal context and the individual author have an immense effect in the portrayal of both religions and life stances in religious education.

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.

As the occurrence of obesity increases amongst young people, so increases the risk of more people suffering from heart failure as early as during middle age. The aim is to describe the life experiences of middle aged persons living with chronic heart failure. The literature study is based on twelve published, qualitative, and scientifically proved articles derived from MedLine and Cinahl using queries representing the subject, as well as from manual searching in ScienceDirect and LIBRIS. These articles have been analyzed from a life world perspective. Four main themes and four sub themes were identified from the articles' results.