AbstractThe aim of the present study was to investigate if and how pre-school teachers reach the objectives in the national curriculum concerning the environmental issues.Another angle of this study is to find out if there are any involvement amongst the preschools regarding the environmental issues and if the teachers encourage the children to join in and make them a part of discussion.I have randomly chosen 10 preschools throughout Sweden and interviewed one staff-member from each school. Most of the preschools were well aware of the goals to follow according to the national curriculum.After comparing the answers my conclusion is that preschools act quite differently concerning environmental issues. Some worked almost exclusively with the children involved. Others occasionally involved the children whereas a few didn?t include the children at all.In every case the teachers would want to dedicate more time to environmental issues.

The Arctic region has not been a topic of discussion or a reason for a conflict in the past, but with the development of environmental issues which has resulted in melting of the ice, so has the interest for the region developed. This has resulted in a conflict over the area, with five countries as main actors. This paper investigates the five main actors? goals with increased influence in the area, using the thoughts of Rational Actor Model, with states as utility-maximizing actors and foreign policy as the expression of national interest. Furthermore the paper investigates the means of getting to the goal, what kind of tools they use.The paper shows that all of the countries are interested in the economically benefits that are buried under the melting ice and the short cuts in sea routes that will be a possibility to use ones the ice melt more.

As a result of increased energy prices more and more energy-efficient homes are coveted. An energy-efficient alternative is passive houses, which is characterized by an extremely well insulated building envelope that recovers the heat without the use of radiators or under floor heating. But a passive house requires a higher investment cost than a conventional building project, since it will require more construction materials, training of construction workers, greater land area, and long construction period. But the lower operating cost expects to pay back the higher cost of investment. We therefore question how profitable a passive house is in relation to houses built according to modern conventional building techniques.The aim of our study is to investigate the viability of passive houses compared to convent­ional houses.

A place that mixes different kind of uses of space. Two main theatres inside and a lot of smaller rooms for different venues. A methaphor the tide have strong impact of shaping the building.

The building industry consumes approximately 40 % of the total energy consumption in Sweden, where the using stage is dominating with 80 %. There is a lot of work in progress to reduce energy use in the building industry, and the demands from authorities regarding energy use increases. As a part of this work Building and planning department of Sweden has established a requirement that has been applied since 2006, and restricts a maximum energy use for buildings.The requirement includes that an energy simulation must be done in advance to demonstrate that it is possible to meet the demands.Reality is however more complex than an energy simulation program, that frequently underestimates the energy use of buildings. The purpose of this thesisis to study and analyse deviations between estimated and actual energy use in modern apartment buildings. The study includes four apartment buildings in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Jönköping that were built in 2007-2009.

The purpose of this essay is to examine if the municipality has a real freedom of action to control the use of the land and the shaping of the buildings in a large and prestigious building project.In Karlstad there is now (2006) a large building project in form of a shopping mall. This project is in its final stage of completion and offers me a suitable case to examine. To undertake the purpose of the essay, the following research question is formulated:Do the municipality have a real freedom of action to control the use of the land and the shaping of the buildings in a large and prestigious building project as the Mitt I City project?In an attempt to examine the project and the planning process, three themes are applied. The first theme derives from the hypothesis that the part that initiate the process gets the upper hand as future discussions are taking place in relation to the original ideas.

The most recent couple of years the boundaries of the world have been erased and we have come to live in a more global environment. It has been even more evident since the European Union has got a more prominent role in the society. It appears as obvious for most of us that we live in a changeable time and that a new, global perspective has been developed. Companies have to focus on the effect globalization and differences in culture have, to be competitive in the market today. Because of that business managers more often can come to work in other countries than their country of origin, it becomes interesting whether these managers adapt their management style or if they continue to work the same way as they did in their native country.This thesis aims to investigate if business managers with a foreign background bring along their national culture when managing a company in Sweden.

Title: Images of Sweden in ItalyNumber of pages: 5252 (589 including enclosures)Author: Oskar GustafssonTutor: Martin NilssonCourse: Political Science C level ? Bachelor?s ThesisPeriod: Spring term 2010University: School of Social SciencesLinnaeus UniversityPurpose/Aim: The purpose of my research study is to, through the use of political science theories on soft power and marketing theories about nation branding and in comparison to previous studies on the image of Sweden in Italy, gains a better understanding of the image of Sweden in Italy, with special focus on national political institutions and young Italians.Method: The method of analysis is a combination of qualitative methods: interviews where information about the image of Sweden amongst national political institutions were gathered and a survey where information was gathered about the image of Sweden amongst young Italians.Main results: On the basis of the results I have gained it can be concluded that a positive and well informed image of Sweden emerges when it comes to cultural and social factors but a more restricted and somewhat negative image come to light when asking national political institutions and young citizens in Italy about their views and knowledge on Swedish domestic and international politics and economics.Keywords: Soft power, Public Diplomacy, Nation Branding, Images of Sweden, Italy..

This study deals with the phenomenon of European integration and its impact on national party programs in Poland, a current member state of the European Union. The author will argue that the question of European integration has left a mark on the political party programs of two mainstream domestic parties on opposite sides of the ideological dimension, in the form of a certain degree of convergence regarding the ?European issue?. Relating the result of the analysis to the theoretical structure of Europeanization and sociological institutional change, the essay will attempt to show a possible link between them. Although this trend does not seem to indicate any dramatic effects of the membership per se in the programs (the national arena seems, in most cases, be of more value for party activities) there is an indirect effect in the form of the presence of Europarties and a pronounced incentive for social and economic adaptation..

Every year, Swedish municipalities transfer considerable amounts of profit from public housing companies to the owner municipality. Municipalities are allowed to do this, provided that the money is used to pay for certain purposes. But there are no legal repercussions if they do not comply. Not all municipalities choose to transfer profits. Based on partisan theory, this difference could be explained by the political governance of the municipality.

This essay is written about how the physical environment affects teachers? own learning. The purpose is to see how the teachers? work is affected by various factors, such as the uses and placement of the teachers? offices, common room, or any other places where a meeting may occur. The survey was conducted using both interviews and observations of the teacher?s office.

The purpose of this study is to explain if the existence of ethnic groups in Rwanda has complicated its democratization and explain what opportunities Rwanda has to be democratized. To fulfill the purpose of the study, I intend to answer two questions: 1) Does the existence of ethnic groups obstructed democratization in Rwanda? and 2) What opportunities has Rwanda to be democratized? To answer the first research question Dahl's theory of subcultures and democratization is used and to answer the second research question van de Walle's theory of democratization is used in the region of sub-Saharan Africa. Literature used in the study are Dahl's Polyarchy and van de Walle Africa?s range of regimes and Freedom House annual reports.

Corruption is widespread, and exists more or less in all countries in the world. It is today high on the international political agenda as a result of globalization and is seen as a serious impediment to development. In 2011, Sweden scored 9,3 out of 10 on the Transparency International corruption index which gave the country a 4th place of 182 on the list. This refers to a rather low corruption. Although Sweden is a country with low level of corruption that does not mean that it is completely corruption-free.

Everyone has to take a greater responsibility in energy issues, both individuals and companies. There have been some major developments in the construction industry but there is still a lot to be done. This diploma work thesis presents different methods of making existing construction shed establishments to use less energy. What is possible to do and how much energy is there to be saved? A shed establishment consisting of 8 shed units were studied in this project and the building simulation tool VIP-Energy was used to simulate different types of material in the sheds. An infrared camera was used to locate thermal bridges. There are several factors that can be improved to make a construction shed establishment to use less energy.

The purpose of this investigation is to examine the extent to which Swedish compulsory school tends to rely upon, and to further reinforce, ideologies that from a theoretical platform of deep ecology can be identified as ?ecologically unsustainable conceptions of reality?. Mainly, this will purport to an examination of the (explicit as well as implicit) prevalence of anthropocenthrism, individualism, ethnocenthrism and rationalism in a) the Swedish National Curriculum; and in b) biology text books. Methodologically, the study makes use of Fairclough´s approach to, and method for, critical discourse analysis (CDA). The main results are that the National Curriculum indeed expresses a high level of individualism, as well as (although to a lesser extent) traces of rationalism and ethnocenthrism.