Abstract?Political participation by the citizen?- Citizen proposals in Karlstad municipalityEssay in Political Science, C-levelAuthor: Tobias GustafssonTutor: Michele MichelettiIn Sweden the political parties are losing more and more of their members. That in combination with a tendency that the participation in the elections is getting lower is a problem for the representative and parliamentary political system in Sweden.In order to strengthen the democracy in Sweden and to make the gap between the citizens and the elected smaller there has been some democracy-projects. The purpose of these democracy-projects is to make the political participation by the citizens, between the elections, higher. One of them is ?citizen proposals to the municipality?.The purpose of this essay is to examine this democracy-project in order to see what influences it might have on the local democracy.

Sweden is a multi cultural country, where almost twenty percent of the population come from another cultural background. This study examines to what extent people with a foreign origin appear in two local, Swedish newspapers, Barometern and Östra Småland, and what role they are given. Do they appear as foreigners or immigrants or do they figure as any Swede, irrespective of their origin background?We have made a review by studying pictures of people with a foreign origin, based on name and appearance. During the time period, March 1st ? April 30 th 2010, there were 2206 articles with pictures of people where 189 of them did show people with a foreign origin.

The emerging Swedish suburbs of the 1960- 1970s started out as a utopian vision: a new city for the modern people. Media presented a different view and emphasized the inhuman livingenvironment and the social problems of the suburbs. Nationwide there have been local attempts to avoid this negative publicity by adjusting identified suburban problems. Due to medial presentation the suburbs are still associated with segregation, criminality and social problems. The presentation of suburbs and immigrants affects not only the process of integration and the general public idea of integration processes, but also the individual perception of themselves and their living.

This work derives from the question ?What is a beautiful road??. The question is being discussed in interviews with two employees at the Swedish National Road Administration and two former members of the ?Council of environment and beauty? at the Swedish National Road Administration. The interviews are summarized in my own discussion about the concept of ?Beautiful roads?.

Today more and more municipalities interact across a wide range of sectors. The reasons tostart interacting are varying and for those who succeed with this form of work, there arebenefits in terms of efficiency and knowledge exchanges. But are the reasons that interactalways obvious? Sweden currently has 290 municipalities of varying size and allmunicipalities have basically the same mission, to deliver services to its residents.Information technology allows municipalities to digitize much of the workload, but theintroduction of the technique is not without problems. For small municipalities, there are greatdemands to deliver reliability and support for their internal and external services.

In this essay a social perspective on the mind is explored and argued for. The essay moves from a discussion of a social collective foundation for the individual mind to a discussion ofthe main alternative ways of describing the shared social world, namely an action-centred perspective and a power-centred perspective. It is shown that these two perspectives are combinable. A combination of the two perspectives is therefore recommended for a more balanced way of describing the shared social world. In this essay it is argued for that the individuals? mind and her identity is dependent on the surrounding community.

Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen iKulturvård, Landskapsvårdens hantverk, 15 hp, 2012.

Örebro UniversityThe Department Behavioural, Social, and Legal SciencesEducation of social workC-essay 41-60 pAbstractTitle: Work for everyone? An interview study of how three professions within the introduction programme in the local-government in Falköping looks at structural obstacles and discrimination in immigrants? access to the Swedish labour market.Authors: Emma Gustavsson and Sandra TjärnbergTutor: Rúna Baianstovu Deniz and Urban KarlssonToday many immigrants stand outside the labour market. To get established on the labour market and to get self-sufficient are important factors to a rapid integration process. The main purpose of this study is to investigate how three professions within the integration work in the local-government of Falköping looks at structural obstacles and possibilities with immigrants? access to the Swedish labour market.

With the rise of the internet especially and information- and communication technology in general, the opportunities for fast and effective communication and sharing of information have proliferated. In relation to the new technologies, the citizens? demands on organizations? communicative efforts have increased. Today?s citizens have high standards regarding transparency, the opportunity to dialogue and have hopes to influence the public sector.

Teaching materials are a constant matter of discussion as they represent the school curriculum and what the students are reading in the classroom. Within religious studies in upper secondary school, a new approach emerged since the new curriculum from 2011, which is to interpret religion in relation to gender. This study aimed to see which gender performances two selected teaching materials represented, in both their texts and images. This study was performed using both discourse analysis for the texts and content analysis of the images. The study showed that traditional gender performances appear both in the chapters that touched human identity and also ethics and morals, and also in the chapters that touched the world religions.

Torstensson, Niklas (2012): Anledningar till olikheter mellan Svenska kommuners skolkvalitet (Causes behind the differences in Swedish municipality´s quality of school) Örebro University.This essay is an explorative case study that will compare four Swedish municipalities quality of local school system against the municipality ´s backgrounddata and a governing document: Skolplan. This study begins in a previous benchmarking study made by one of Sweden?s teachers unions Lärarförbundet. This is a statistical study that ranked the Swedish municipalities against each other?s according to their accomplishments in a number of areas related to their school systems.

Lately, more and more music festivals have emerged in Sweden. People?s desire and need to visit these events only seems to increase. Cultural tourism and music tourism has developed into a significant and important part of the experience industry and it employs more and more people within the tourism industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate which effects this can have on the local community.

This thesis is a comparative analysis of language policy in the Post-Soviet states Ukraine and Kazakhstan, wherein the states are seen as rational actors using language as an instrument in the nation-building process. With a take-off point in an underframe of theories on the nation, national identity, instrumentalism, power and the particular role of language in the nation-building process, this thesis shows that language is a key instrument used by the two states.The Ukrainian and Kazakhian language policies create and put across a certain image of the nation, by emphasising the titular languages as symbols of the new states. The line of argument in the language policy is a balance act between large-scale promotion of titular languages and a careful and inclusive attitude towards the Russian language. The biggest differences are that Ukraine, compared to Kazakhstan, has a more comprehensive and consequent language policy with a deeply rooted historic rhetoric. The most obvious instruments of the states in language policy is censuses, corpus-planning and the state choosing one official language..

This is a thesis written at the Swedish University of Agriculture inAlnarp within the landscape architecture education. The essay dealswith the landscape architect's professional identity and how it isdescribed in different contexts along with how it is perceived byprofessional landscape architects.Misunderstandings and preconceptions concerning the landscapearchitect's professional identity is common, both within and outsidethe branch of industry that includes the vocation. This raises problemswithin the industry and for the individual landscape architect. To findout if the root of the problems lies in available descriptions of theoccupation a study has been made. The study includes how thelandscape architect is defined in easily accessible information fromthe internet and in literature as well as in industry-orientedinformation such as dissertations and information from SverigesArkitekter (the Swedish Architects).

The purpose of this Masters Thesis is to explore the process of selection that librarians face when selecting and acquiring cultural magazines to public libraries. The methods used are qualitative interviews and literary studies. A brief review is given of acquisition policies at public libraries and of cultural magazines and the important role they play in public libraries. Five interviews have been made at five public libraries to find out what factors affect the process of selection when it comes to cultural magazines. Two theories are used as a basis for the analysis of the result of the interviews and literary studies.