Actors deliberately change their preferences, contrary to the assumptions of rational decision models. This study shows why, and to some extent how. Preferences are necessarily ambiguous and unstable. Rationality is a regulating myth which has had a profound influence on Western conceptions of what an actor is.The aim of this study is to help individual actors understand the theoretical grounds of their actions. The analysis provides tools for examining decision methods and preference changes.

The survey takes its starting point in a critical evaluation of recent phenomenological approaches to rock art in landscape studies, foremost the works of Chris Tilley. The purpose is to present a phenomenological theory, based on the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, which includes both Motives, places and landscapes in a holistic interpretation. Bronze age rock art around Motala ström and the city of Norrköping is used to exemplify the theoretical discussion. When presenting the framework, emphasis is being laid on the bodily experience of rock art and place through the process of phenomenological intersubjectivity..

The purpose of this science of Art History research paper is to find out the meaning of Cats in Art. I have limited my studies to the Nationalmuseums picture gallery and found forty paintings with cats. I have chosen sixteen of these to furthur analyze typographically and chronologically from a symbolic perspective. The forty paintings from the Nationalmuseum were created during four centuries, with the first being painted in the Sixteenth Century. I have studied the cats dimensional placement in the picture, if the cat is in an outdoor or indoor environment, with people and if the cat is active or passive.

There is an irregularity in the interregional migration in Sweden. An increasing proportion ofthe population is drawn to the metropolitan areas, which creates problems for the smallermunicipalities and towns when their population declines. At the same time, our whole societyis faced with a great challenge: we need to redirect towards a sustainable development, wherethe environmental issues are discussed and dealt with to secure that all present and futuregenerations are given equal opportunities to live a good life.The aim of this study is to, focusing mainly on the environmental dimension of thesustainability concept, examine the attractivity of housing with sustainability claims. Toanswer this, three research questions were used:? Was the migration motive to reduce their environmental impact a part of the decision tomove, among migrants who had moved to housing with sustainability claims?? If the motive was a part of the decision, how much impact did it have compared to othermigration Motives?? Which factors in housing aiming at sustainability are considered important by peopleliving in housing with sustainability claims?The research questions have been answered using quantitative data, gained in the form of selfadministeredquestionnaires which were distributed in four different residential areas withsustainability claims in the county of Västra Götaland, Sweden.

This paper investigates the relation between stock performance and owner share retention in Swedish public equity listings during 2009 to 2013. The listings during the period are studied and divided into binary groups of "exits" and "non-exits", which are used in a statistical regression model to determine if there is a significant difference in average stock performance. The study finds that stocks of exit-companies on average significantly underperformed stocks of non-exit-companies during 2009 to 2013. Nevertheless, due to the limited number of observations available and the unusual market conditions, caution is required in interpreting these results..

Narrative history has a long tradition in history teaching. But during the decades after the second world war, the attitude to storytelling has been seen with doubt and skepticism. There are many indications in Swedish society and media that the narrative story today stand strong. But is narrative history useful in everyday teaching? This essay is a study of narrative history in a Swedish and Scandinavian perspective the latest thirty years.

This master thesis is about the collaboration between the custom dairy heifer grower and thedairy producer.The custom dairy heifer grower is a rather unusual strategy of reproductive management inSweden compared to other countries like U.S. and Denmark where the specialization withindairy production gone much further. In these countries the research also has reached muchfurther within this type of industry. However in Sweden there has been research made in thearea of collaboration, but then only within collaborations in the industries of crop production,dairy production and pork meat.The down going trend of profitability within dairy production together with poor profitabilityin the beef industry could partly remedy if more collaborations around heifer contractingwould arise. But since the industry still is of a rare kind in Sweden the knowledge about howthese types of collaborative arrangements works and their contracts are put together is poor.By that the aim of this master thesis is formulated as follows: "how is usually thecollaborative arrangement between the dairy producer and custom dairy heifer growerdesigned".

The aim of this study is to investigate teachers? experiences of working with Writing to Read (WTR), and their perceptions of how pupils develop in reading and writing when they write on computers or similar devices. Another aim is to study teachers? Motives for using the WTR method. The material used for analysis is four interviews with teachers who use WTR.

In this essay I have chosen to take a closer look at gold figure foils (Swedish ?guldgubbar?), find their context and analyze it. I have analyzed some earlier studies about gold figure foils that were found in Scandinavia.The focus of my study is based on the locations of the findings. Another important aspect is to discuss if the encountered gold figure foils that were folded and cut looked like that due to intentional Motives or not.My conclusion is that when it comes to the locations of the findings they are mostly found in houses irrespective of if it´s in a posthole, wall or house foundation.The other conclusion is that the gold figure foils could have intentionally been manipulated before they ended up in the ground..

The current research examined whether Motives, traditional mass media consumption and individual differences (social activity and political interest) predicted the use of social media among a group of university students in China. In coherence with Uses and Gratifications assumptions the study found that the factors differentially predicted the extent of media use. Information seeking, social interaction and affinity were the main reasons for using social media. There was a negative correlation between television viewing and use of social media, in addition to a negative correlation between information seeking and use of the media. Results further suggest that social media are used to enhance social capital, since student?s being socially active offline, tend to use the media to a greater extent than those less active..

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how work by Swedish artist Ylva Ogland (born in 1974) function as an eye-opener for the social marginalisation of people identified with homosexuality, prostitution and drug addiction. Although highly present in reality, these phenomena were historically, and are still today, hidden from view in public discourse. I have focused on the installations Rapture and Silence and Things Seen, and the still-life painting called Xenia. I argue that these artworks carefully represent the above-mentioned marginalised groups, by way of references to comparable Motives in the history of art, from neoclassicism in France, to realism and romanticism..

The purpose of this paper is to juxtapose the theories of learning that are reflected in student?s perspectives of the learning log with that of the pedagogical intentions of the curriculum in order to examine the discrepancy between the experienced and the intentional learning objectives. The paper is divided into two sections. The first section is a literature survey on theories related to the learning log and the curriculum. The second part is constituted by three semi-structured group interviews concerning student´s views on the learning log.

Within the field of welfare research, few people take into account both the aspect of gender and class. Thetraditional class-oriented research has a one-dimensional perspective on gender and the feminist welfare researchrarely carry out large comparative studies. A multi-dimensional perspective on the construction ofgender and class would benefit from both the feminist and class welfare-oriented research, and contribute toincreasing the knowledge about the individual's experience and attitudes to work and work time. The aim ofthis paper is to examine the correlation of the intersectional relationship between sex / gender position andclass position with the attitudes and Motives for working time reduction. Especially in, (1) the value in work,and (2) the attitude to a high number of working hours, as well as (3) its combined effect on the conflict betweenwork and family.

The companies? managements acknowledge personal relations and trust, through good communication and predefined responsibilities and goals, as key factors to succeed in strategic alliance. These factors did not always exist according to the employees? involved. This research, in contrast, suggests that these factors are subordinate to the correlation between the company?s vision and the alliance objectives, hence level of priority, which indicates that management has hidden Motives for entering the strategic alliance.

In this essay I investigate how prehistoric cultural environments are portrayed in tourist publications. Through discourse analysis I aim to find clues on how cultural heritage is discussed and represented in existing media. I also investigate how the available media is affected by the tourist industry and its commercial Motives. In recent portrayals of cultural heritage sites, there has been less information about the underlying history and other values have taken its place. Discourse about immaterial cultural heritage has not been present in tourist brochures from the 20th century but has been introduced in recent years while older publications discuss the role of our cultural heritage as essential components in our current society.