The aim of the study has been to explore what participation and hope means for persons with disabilities living in an institution called Horizon House, in Stellenbosch South Africa. The aim has also been to discover the South African approach to disability and how Horizon House fits into this approach. Horizon House is an institution and a protective workplace in Stellenbosch for adults whose main impairment is of an intellectual nature but there are also physical and emotional disabilities. Another aim has been to explore the perspectives of the residents. The research questions of the study are: ? What does participation imply for the residents of Horizon House?? What does Hope represent for the residents of Horizon House?? What importance can hope have for people with disabilities, in their approach towards increased participation? We travelled to South Africa during a two week period in March 2009, where we participated at the protective workplace of Horizon House.

Earlier research has shown that young and adult citizens in Europe participate in politics in different ways. While adult citizens participate in more traditional ways, non-traditional ways are more frequent among younger citizens. Moreover, issue-based participation increases when Europeans turn away from mainstream politics. Citizens in the European Union EU-15 between 15-24 ages are likely to be ?critical? citizens of a working democracy compared to people in older ages (Sloam, 2016).

In this thesis the pragmatic pedagogy as formulatad by John Dewey is applied to theswedish national campaign Digidel and its work to spread the digital participation among thegeneral public. The purpose of the thesis is to visualize and problematize that differentunderstandings of a problem, lead to different solutions, as lifted in John Dewey´s pedagogy, thatconstitutes the thesis' theoretical framework. The term digital participation is used by the Digidelcampaign, where public libraries take active part to spread digital participation througheducational efforts. By qualitative interviews with four librarians this thesis examines howunderstandings of the term may vary and in turn lead to differenent educational goals, designsand executions. The result shows that basic computer- and Internetskills are seen as either equelto or prerequisites for digital participation and that the digital participant is seen as either apassive recipient or an active participant.

AbstractHow do pupils with intellectual disabilities experience participation and involvement in school work? It was a question I had in mind when I was formulating the thesis statement. I wanted to catch pupils? experiences and analyze them from the sociology of childhood. Do pupils want more involvement and what obstacles and opportunities do pupils find to exert participation and involvement?The study is based on six interviews conducted with pupils enrolled in the compulsory school for pupils with intellectual disabilities.

The purpose with this examination essay was to find out if participation of children in social welfare investigations had increased since the social services had started to work with BBIC. I compared the participation of the child before BBIC, then when social service had started to work with BBIC and I tried to see if there were increased participation in the investigations. My theoretic starting-point was the symbolic interactionism and I used the qualitative method of investigation. In my investigation I found that there is not yet any increase in participation of the child in the investigations when social service work with BBIC. What I found was that the reason to start an investigation often was that the parents made the problem for the child and that conditions at home for the child influenced the possibility of the child to communi- cate with an adult that the child did not know.

In the light of the problems the media industry are struggling with, local news reporting is only one of the challenges the news organizations are facing. When local editors is being moved to the cities the tie with the local community is being severed.The aim of this study has been to analyze how the inhabitants of Vilhelmina municipality talks about their experiences of local journalism. With methodological inspiration from the Critical discourse analysis (CDA) this study examined the discourses of local journalism, social media, journalism's role and municipal policy. The theorectical framework consisted theories of media and democracy, convergence culture and discourse theory.The survey was conducted with four focus groups interviews. The focus groups were divided in different cathegories based on the participants experiences, ages and employment.

What can make us identify ourselves with places? Why do we feel stronger for certain environments? Is it possible to change the identity and how can we do it? What exactly is building identity on a site, what elements it is safest to hang on to when the wind of change is blowing? In this paper, I?m going to discuss the subject identity in different ways and from different angles. Important questions I have had, has been how to analyze a site and what is the importance of identity and the possibility of changing it?The first part of the paper aims to provide an introduction to the concept of identity. I'm giving a short explanation of what identity is and how places relate to identity.

Background: Chronic pain is a condition that approximately 18% of the Swedish population suffers from. This condition affects many aspects of a person´s life and causes psychological, physiological and social suffering. Multimodal treatment is considered the most effective treatment for patients with chronic pain. Patient participation and motivation are very important to treatment. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore patients´ experience of a multimodal chronic pain treatment program regarding their experience of patient participation and interaction with the rehabilitation team.

In this study we have aimed to explore how participation and self-determination is implemented in the daily life of disabled people who receive support through LSS. The questions addressed concern possibilities/obstacles for the participation and selfdetermination of disabled people who live in group housings, and how the terms participation and self-determination are realized. Nine interviews have taken place with staff members and directors of different group housings. We have found that the interviewees believe that the nature of a person?s disability can be a barrier to the individual?s self-determination and participation in his or her everyday life.

The purpose of this graduate work is to seek knowledge about how children?s right to participation and influence is interpreted and understood in a specific context and also to examine how this right can be conditioned and shaped by the pedagogical practice of early childhood education.The focus of this study has been to examine the arguments and attitudes towards the right to participation and influence as a pedagogical practice as it is understood in early childhood education. Additionally, I have been interested in studying the affordances and restrictions that early childhood educators experience when dealing with children´s right to participation and influence.The platform used for data collection is Facebook and the informants recruited were active participants in forums regarding democracy in preschool education. In the second phase of the study I conducted online focus groups with these participants.For the analysis of the material I have adopted a poststructuralist perspective, starting from Jaques Derridas philosophical texts and use of deconstruction.The results show the complexity in early childhood education´s democratic mission. What becomes clear is the importance for the teachers to adopting an open, ethical and democratic approach in order to make children´s right to participation and genuine influence possible in the everyday reality of early childhood education. .

During the latter part of the 20th century the situation for people with intellectual disabilities in Sweden changed and developed. Clients have the right to participation and self-determination in society and in applied measures under the law of individual rights legislation; LSS. The purpose of this study is to describe and understand how team-leaders and managers in day-centres in a municipality works with participation and self-determination for clients, and what the professionals consider affects the client's possibility to self-determination and participation. The research questions intended to be answered are:? How does the team-leaders and managers work to enable self-determination and participation of the users in the public day-centres?? What does the team-leaders and managers describe and understand as enabling and limiting factors for the client?s possibility to self-determination and participation?The study is qualitative and interviews have been held with eight interviewees, which I contacted through snowball sampling.

Due to the forest industry downsizing, many communities in rural forest regions in Canada and Sweden are facing problems to survive. In order to create community sustainability, resilience and well-being in remote forest regions, the view on the forest resources has shifted towards multiple use, through the concept of sustainable forest management (SFM). Beside the economic and ecological elements of sustainability, the social forest values are needed, contributing to the human well-being, Local participation, stakeholder collaboration, human rights and cultural connection. In this thesis the embodiment of the social component of SFM within Prince Albert Model Forest (Canada), and Vilhelmina Model Forest (Sweden) will be examined. Being partners and facing similar challenges as rural boreal forest regions, the two model forests are compared through analysis of projects and activities, conducted interviews and organization documents. Looking at projects mentioned as successful by the interviewees, they all have elements from the social values of SFM. The direction can be explained by the introduction of the Forest Communities Program in Canada, demanding the Model Forests to work towards community stability and resilience, the Model Forest organization concept itself and the way global focus are increasing around social forest values. In the future, it may be important that the role of the MFs enable some kind of political authorization and legitimacy in order to improve conflict solving and indigenous rights equality.

The purpose of this report is to find a model of statistics for construction and demolition waste, which makes it useful for the local manager at the building site. The intention with the model is that it will be used as a support of the local manager, to direct his project towards reduced strain of the environment. The model will also be used to make it easier to control that the claims from authority and aims for the environment are achieved. To familiarise with the subject waste handling within the building and construction sectorI have done a literature search. I have also been studying rules and regulations regarding the waste handling.

According to the curriculum Sweden?s elementary school is to educate students in subjects such as "Listening, debating and argumentation". I ask myself if this is actually something that every student is being provided with. The purpose of this study is to gain additional information about children?s participation in the classroom.

The aim with this Master's thesis is to study the debate that takes place in the local community when a public library branch is threatened by closedown through the local newspapers. Through this it is our aim to understand why the debate takes place, and why so many people gets concerned with it. By relating this debate to contemporary research of library- and information science, and the discussion in three major Swedish library journals, we have found the answers to these questions. By studying the debate, we found six subjects that where essential for this study. These were Politics and economics, Urban and rural districts, Democracy and accessibility, The service of the library, The meeting place and To replace a closed down library.