This case study examines the new media presentation system in Alby public library. The aim is to explore if the contemporary Zeitgeist, wich according to the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, could be described as liquid modernity, has affected how the system was formed. The purpose is to find out how that would affect users and staff of public libaries of the contemporary. Interviews were conducted with the library staff, and plans and documents concerning the media presentation system was examined.The empirical part of this thesis starts with a study of the process that resulted in the new presentation system while the second part examines the system as such. I discovered that both the media presentation system, and the process which preceded it, contained aspects that could be traced to liquid modernity.

Equal opportunity issues are considered to have a clear position in Swedish policy and the making of Swedish gender policy is considered a precursor. Though many experts and scientists have shed light on the fact that the issue of women assault has had a less stable development than other gender issues such as child care, the labour market etc. within the Swedish society, and that it does not attract the wide political support it needs. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the Municipalities', in the county of Kronoberg, policy on the issue of women assault within their local policies of equality. In my thesis I have chosen a theoretical framework that is built on a dilemma of justice based on three different dimensions; the extent, content and influence of the local policies.

Participating in peace support operations has been and remains a significant part of the Swedish defense and security politics. Since the end of the Cold War, the Swedish national defence has been more and more dismantled, in favor of international peace support operations which have become an increasingly important task for the Swedish defence. Why then, is Sweden so engaged in conflicts so far from home? Using two classic theories of international politics, realism and liberalism, this study aims to shed light on arguments from the Swedish parliament on why it is important for Sweden to participate in international peace support operations. After analyzing arguments of the Social Democrat Party, the Moderate Party, the Green Party and the Liberal Party concerning three different peace support operations which Sweden has participated in, the result shows that although both realism and liberalism are influencing the parties? argumentation, liberalism is the theory which is used more often.

The aim of this master thesis is to create an understanding of what it can be like to grow older as a homosexual man in Sweden today. The study has an intersectional and queer theoretical approach and is based on eight in depth interviews with men who are aged between 68 and 82 years old. In the analysis I deal with the problem of how sexuality can be inter- preted with the experience of aging. Central to the analysis is the criticism of norms connected to age, sexuality, social- and family life and gay culture.The results show that the norm-breaking sexual orientation of the men affects their life path in terms of how to organize social life, where friends often replace the traditional family. New ways of forming relationships and living their lives imply other obligations rather than the traditional for significant others, which was shown to influence the expectations and outcome of old age in terms of care and support.

A qualitative interview study how the normative gender images affects on women, their roles and positions in a drug abuse. The purpose of this study aims to shed a light at the consequences that the normative gender scenario inflicts on women with drug abuse and how these prejudices affects these women. Based on interviews with four different women who all lived with a drug abuse we have problematized how the gender system and the normative gender images affected them. We have used gender perspectives and social constructivism theories while analyzing the empirical basis. More specifically we use the theories of Butler about how gender constructs through performative actions and Hirdmans theories of the gender system.

This paper investigates the level of consciousness regarding to the diversity work in the municipalities of Malmö, Lund and Landskrona. The study focuses on persons in a middle management position connected to various spheres of activities in each municipality. A survey concerning each municipality's diversity plan, diversity work, recruiting process, education and knowledge was used to investigate the participants' consciousness. The survey poses similar questions regarding equality between the sexes to compare the results from each field. The paper presents an overview of the development of Sweden's labour market and society, and gives an account for the differences between immigrants and natives positions in the labour market.

Which general outlines are preferable in the relation between organizations and government? From normative theory and method I throw light upon this question by defining and comparing two different democratic standpoints. The substantial democratic standpoint focuses on political effectiveness and the procedural democratic standpoint focuses on equal representation. The normative discussion aims at comparing how well the different standpoints function in political praxis. Since the ambition is to discuss concrete praxis I have also chosen to analyse an extensive case of interest influence in Swedish politics empirically.

The novel American Psycho was first published in 1991. It recieved harsh criticism and was viewed as a work of heterosexism, misogyny and pointless violence. Despite the criticism, the protagonist, a wealthy serial killer yuppie namned Patrick Bateman, fascinated the readers. He hides his monstrosity behind a façade of heteronormativity, but this essay shows that the norms in American Psycho are fragile. Batemans relationships are shallow, his identity is constructed out of traditional masculinitynorms and even though he?s homophobic there?s a homoerotic undertone in the text, as well as gothic patterns that give the novel a fair amount of queerness too.

Children of today are surrounded by many different kinds of media. Books have to compete with new media like computers, video games, many TV-channels etc. The aim of this study has been to investigate the reading habits of 9-12-year old boys in their spare time, and their reasons for reading related to their use of other media. Our interest has been to shed light on the boys reading habits, their preferences and motives for reading and their reading functions. Even though our focus has been on their reading, we also have examined their use of other media and the function of this use.

This master thesis deals with events, dynamics and problems of mediated information seeking within the context of a new information service called "Book a librarian". The study, based on a survey and interviews both in academic and public libraries and participant observations in academic libraries, has its theoretical base in the cognitive theory of information retrieval interaction. The cognitive view is used to throw light upon the need of an ongoing dialogue during the session in order to detect the information needs of the user and to conduct a successful retrieval of information. The communicative interaction is seen as threepart interaction between the intermediary, the user and the information system, where the current cognitive states of all three participants are involved. The study shows that the cognitive obstacles for a successful mediation and information retrieval are mostly connected to participants current knowledge of the subject and of the retrieval techniques.

This thesis is a discourse theory analysis of two feminist anthologies - Det heter feminism! and F- ordet.  By analyzing these texts through the three categories feminism & feminists, gender equality & equality and sex/gender & sexuality I have raised questions about the feminist debate in Sweden in the 21st century.The discourse theory?s ideas of descriptions of reality and fixation of meaning lies as a foundation for this thesis. The concepts of social constructionism, post structuralism and essentialism/anti essentialism are central for the analysis as well as concepts connected to the three previously mentioned categories.The intention of this thesis is to describe and analyze a fraction of the Swedish feminist debate in the 21st century and discuss its meaning in a societal context. A number of conclusions were reached in the final discussion.

Theoretically, when an organization grows large it has to formalize its structure and exercise control by more regulations. The negative side effect might in turn be demotivated employees (machine bureaucracy). However, practice seems to contradict theory. Therefore, we decided to investigate how a large company, in this case Microsoft, succeeds in creating motivation despite some machine bureaucratic tendencies. The essential findings are that the employees feel motivated by the fact that they are allowed freedom with responsibility.

In scientific investigations on how organizations can learn from their mistakes the perspective is usually that of the social engineer; the object is to prevent human errors through modeling the system in a certain way. The aim of this paper is to explore the learning process from a different standpoint than those usually applied in organizational learning and error theory. By studying the learning process in Swedish health care I seek to discover how theoretical presumptions affect the outcome in terms of what we actually learn. The theoretical framework draws on two major discussions in contemporary political science; the question of structure and agency and the question of whether to focus on formal or informal structures when explaining organizational behavior.The investigation shows that Swedish health care tend to understand human errors as a result of formal organizational structure. Such a view leads to insufficient explanations to why errors occur but is useful in producing preventative measures.

This study is based on the feminist belief in the importance of a reorganization of the existing gender hierarchy, where women have less power than men. Since news media reflect as well as contribute to create the reality we live in has the purpose with this study been to shed some light on how the gender structure is expressed in Sweden?s most popular television news program. I chose to examine one broadcast per day from the Public Service SVT news program Rapport during January 2010 using quantitative content analysis and the result was as follows:65 % of the news programs was presented by a woman news anchor 36 % of the news reports was carried through by a women journalist 31 % of the interviews contained a female participant The representation of female participants in interviews did not depend onif the journalist was a woman or a manThe representation of female participants in interviews did not depend on if the report was from Sweden or abroadWomen were more often than men interviewed in the role as nursing staff, development aid worker, teacher or principal, parent of a son, retired and sick or sick leaveOnly men were interviewed in the role as rescue worker, custom staff, member of the armed forces, house owner and tourist..

Damages have four main functions: reparation, placing of the costs, distribution of the losses and prevention. The rules about damages evolved before liability insurance had the extension it has today, 97 % of the Swedish populations is covered by liability insurance, since it is included in the comprehensive household insurance. Liability insurance should be looked at in the light of the damage rules, but the rules about damages are adapted to the insurance possibilities.The Law of damages contains, though the general adjustment article 6:2, the adjustment article 2:4 about children and the adjustment article 2:5 about the mentally ill, a possibility to adjust a non reasonable damage claim. If the liability insurance covers the damages no adjustment is made. Even when the adjustment articles are being used the damages is a heavy burden for the person who is liable for the damages.