The purpose of this essay is to examine the concept of competence within the social services. More specifically it aims to find out how the social workers themselves look upon their own competence in social investigations concerning children. As the study was based on focus groups the main questions were vague at the beginning and were cleared later on during the group sessions.In three focus group interviews in three different municipalities in southern Sweden 11 social workers were asked to discuss this issue. The interviews were then thoroughly transcribed. In the data I identified 9 themes seeming to play a special roll in the discussions about competence: practice; experience; approach; intuition; responsibility; theories, methods and laws; reflection; resources and ethics; specialisation versus integration.The analysis made on these themes was based on two different kinds of perspective; one focusing knowing-in-action and the other focusing the organization framing the competence considered.As a conclusion the 7 first themes can be seen as a definition of the competence used in social investigations concerning children.

The main purpose of this study is to show how narrative can be understood as cultural practice, how it can be said to function both internally and externally, and to ask questions about how the narrating subject, through the organizing of narrative, positions it self and mediates between the different discoursive contexts of which it is a part. This is done by an analisys of how six swedish soldiers tells the tale of how they came to choose a military carrer and why they have served or want to serve in peace-keeping missions abroad. The source material is primarily collected through unstructured interviews with theese soldiers, but also through textual analysis of a soldier blog. Theoretically the study draws on a combination of the discourse theory of Michel Foucault, narrative theory, Richard Jenkins theory of the internal-external dialectic of identifikation and intersectionality to construct a framework that allows the narratives to be deconstructed and understood as discoursive products of both the military contexts as such and the larger cultrual context that surrounds it. The conclusions of this study suggests that the organizing of soldier narratives are a complex and multifaceted process, in which the soliders must balance between the ideals, values and norms of the military context while also taking into account how society at large views and interprets the practices and forms of military life.

The aim of this two-year masters thesis is to look for the Swedish public library´s core business, using theories about competence. The approach is qualitative. It is done by studying the Unesco Public Library Manifesto, the Swedish library legislation, the education in library and information science, two important Swedish library related journals and by asking public librarians about their work and point of view regarding competence.The research shows mainly two sides of the core competence of public librarians: information technology competence and literature knowledge. The conclusion is that the two meet in the idea of mass education, which could therefore be called the Swedish public library´s core business..

Testing and analysis of measurement data is a major part of the workday for development engineers within the section Fluid and Emission Treatment to assure the quality of products developed by Scania CV. The ineluctable variation and therefore uncertainty of results can be quantified and discussed with the use of statistical methods.The overall objective of this study is to examine how the competence of development engineers can be improved within the area of statistics. This has been done by relating the concept of competence with the use of statistical methods to analyse experimental data and by investigating which factors that influence the competence of the engineers. Observations of the daily operations, interviews and a focus group with development engineers and a workshop with management personnel, has been used as research methods in this study.The results show that the desired competence, from the perspective of the individual, consists of knowledge, motivation and support. It is important that none of these parts are neglected when the competence of engineers is to be strengthened.

AbstractThe purpose of this minor thesis is to describe and systematize the Swedish debate about Sweden?s participation in the defence community of the European Union. Should Sweden take part of this or not? My aim is to describe the debate in a structured and legible way, so that the reader can get a comprehensive picture. The questions of the study are:· Which actors join in the Swedish debate about Sweden?s military participation in the EU:s defensive community; the possible common defence of the EU and the EU:s military crisis management?· Which arguments are delivered (for and against) in the debate?To be able to fulfil the aim of this study I have done an argumentation analysis.

A decision has been made that the Swedish and the Finnish Navy will expand their cooperation by creating the ?Swedish-Finnish Naval Task Group? (SFNTG).Based on Michael Codner?s theory of interoperability, this essay?s aim is to investigate if the Swedish and the Finnish currently are interoperable with each other, due to their military strategic concepts.According to Codner, similarities between the cooperating nation?s military strategic concepts are required in order to reach a high degree of interoperability. This essay will analyze and compare Sweden and Finland?s military strategic concepts, based on three categories; Global Projection, Territorial Defence and Combat Capability.The conclusion is that there are differences between the Swedish and the Finnish military strategic concepts in every category, of varying degrees. By looking at the results of this investigation, it is clear in what direction the two nations have to adapt their concepts to enable a high degree of interoperability for the future of the SFNTG..

The purpose of this essay is to investigate and assess, with Clausewitz?s theory as thebackground, how different military theorists interpret and relate to the nature of war.This essay illustrates the state of research into Clausewitz?s philosophical influences.Clausewitz?s theory of the nature of war is subjected to a qualitative text analysis that is followedby a critique of other military theorists interpretations of his theory. Subsequently a descriptive,comparative qualitative text analysis is performed where the factors identified by Clausewitz asbeing part of the nature of war (?rational thought?, ?passion? and ?chance?) are used as a meansto interpret and assess how other military theorists relate to Clausewitz theory. This essay ismainly founded on analysis of the works of Jomini, Delbrück, Fuller, Liddell Hart, Handel,Roxborough, van Creveld and Keegan.

This study is based on my work as a teacher of Swedish language and literature to upper secondary school students, and my interest in developing the teaching of literature by using both new criticism theories and theories of literary perception focusing on reader response. The purpose of the study is to examine the learning process in trying to develop literary competence and to find out how to describe the competence shown by the students. My starting-point is a discussion about literary competence and the theory and model of literary competence by Örjan Torell. In examining literary competence, by how students use their constitutional competence as well as performance and literary transfer competences, Torell´s model shows the possibility and the need for both knowledge of literature and personal reception by focusing on the dialogue between author and reader.The method is qualitative and the empirics are material collected in one senior high school class in the Social Science programme during their second and third year. The material contains written reading logs, written answers to tasks and transcribed recordings of discussions of literature.The analysis shows a variety among the literary competence shown and developed by the students and points to the complexity of understanding the concept of literary competence.

This Thesis in Military Technology deals with experiences drawn from the forced introduction of Weapons Station 01, 2009. The work aims to identify the experiences regarding the forced procurement of military equipment to see how they can develop normal and fast procurement of equipment. The main conclusions of  this work, is to achieve greater capability and increase the military utility, are: -          Common objectives and priorities of stakeholders-          Response and joint types shall determine requirements for system-          Ensure an integrated project team also at lower levels-          Engage the integrated logistic support early in the materiel process-          Include Armed Forces staff as early as possible in the testing and validation-          Prioritize work to facilitate the rapid development of decision on use (BOA)-          Provide back up for increased redundancy in the mission area .

In addition to all our soldiers and officers who do military services abroad there are a lot of people who are affected by their choice to contribute, namely their next of kin. This report deals only with those who are next of kin to those who perform service abroad. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relatives' need for emotional and social support as well as practical and economical support. The main question is What kind of practical/economical and emotional/social support do close relatives require when a relative does military service abroad? The method used in this paper is a qualitative research interview.

The concept competence is considered to be difficult to define. Therefore, it may be problematic to define competence in business and to evaluate the level of skills of employees (Thomsen, 2010). In this study the aim has been to identify key competencies for employees working as purchasers for Skanska Nordic Procurement Unit (NPU). These key competencies will afterwards help Skanska NPU to evaluate purchasers? level of competence.The theoretical framework of the study consists of three different parts.

The specific task of this thesis is to illustrate the complexity of a cooperation between civilian and military entities by examining Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) and their role as an actor among others in the field in a war-torn Afghanistan.By using counterinsurgency strategy as an analytical framework it has been possible to examine the civilian and military contexts closer. Underlying structures concerning the norms and interpretation of reality of the PRTs has been partly revealed. Studies of the PRTs as one significant bearers of "the comprehensive approach", which includes a holistic approach regarding the use of civilian and military capabilities, new conclusions can be drawn on whether a general civil-military approach can be a part of the solution for current and future conflicts. Based on the counterinsurgency strategy, the author has identified three themes as bearing and thus appears through the thesis as a foundation. These are Coordination, Development and Security.

Several studies have shown that the Swedish labour market for different reasons is characterized by ethnical discrimination and that people who have another cultural background than Swedish are being excluded. Most studies done within this area have been focused on why it is harder for immigrants to enter the labour market and identifying the contributing mechanisms for this phenomenon. Instead the aim of this study was to see how the immigrants view their own cultural identity and background and how they perceive that their cultural competences are being valued when they apply for a job. To examine this, the following problematic was used: How does a person who has been brought up with both the Swedish culture and another culture look at using this as a cultural competence when they apply for a job. Two different theories were then applied to analyze the problematic, Erving Goffman´s theory about Stigma and Norbert Elias theory about the Established and the Outsiders.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the target to convert the Swedish military aviation industry towards working within the civilian sector was planned and implemented parallel to the target of building a world-class military aircraft. A number of Government bills have been studied, bills directly connected to the JAS-project as well as bills dealing with civilian project ?s for the military aviation industry. The first group includes bills dealing with the JAS-project ?s role in the overarcing defence policy, as well as the Government ?s bill specifying the guidelines for the JAS-project.

The purpose of this study is to gain understanding of how self employed entrepreneurs (hereafter referred to as ?entrepreneurs?) develop their competence based on their perceived learning space. The main question is: How do these entrepreneurs develop their competence based on their perceived learning space? Other questions relevant for the study are: How important is the social environment for these entrepreneurs and how do they interact with their social environment in order to develop their competence. The study has a qualitative approach.