National and international studies, such as PISA and TIMSS, which are part of the national evaluation system, are carried out continuosly. Skolverket, in collaboration with researchers, are responsible for the implementation, evaluation, and analysis of the studies. National results show an increasing percentage of pupils who do not reach the goals in mathematics. The last completed international studies PISA 2009 and TIMSS 2007 show an impaired trend of knowledge, in international comparison. Moreover, studies also show that the differences between schools and also within the same school in Sweden have increased.

Sweden has had laws protecting nature for about a hundred years. In this paper the views of nature and the values that serve as a rationale for protective measures are analyzed as results of a social process characterized by the dialectic relationship between institutions and discourse. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is used to study this relationship and the discursive practices used by institutions, which reproduce or reshape views of nature that define the relationship between society and nature. Institutional design contributes to shaping discourse in the field of nature protection, while being originally shaped by discourse. In Sweden, the national park is an institution that reproduces a view of nature as the wild and untamed opposite of society, and the natural reserves reproduce a view of nature as holder of a multi-faceted set of values intertwined with society.

The purpose of this essay was to examine, from a gender perspective, how biological children in foster families experience the situation of living with foster siblings. The material consists of ten interviews. We searched answers to the questions:1. In what way have the biological childrens relations to parents, biological siblings and foster siblings changed through the placement?2.

The aim of this study was to compare educational systems in Sweden, Czech Republic, Italy and Scotland. In the light of the Bologna Declaration signed in 1999, I was particularly interested in comparing social work educations in these four countries. Especially to clarify how far they have come to fulfill the goals of the common European educational policy.Central questions asked were: How do the educational systems look like in each of the four countries? How are the social work educations organized in each of them? In what ways do the social work educations differ? How can we explain such differences?Each country in this study represents a different welfare regime, and therefore I was challenged to find out if this has an impact on the implementation of the incentives of the Bologna Declaration. By studying various documents from the European Union, documents from each country and presentations of various social work programmes, I have come to the conclusion that the differences found mainly depends on the historical and socioeconomic traditions in the countries.

Asset management in insurance companies differs from conventional asset management to the extent that respect has to be taken to both assets and the commitments the insurance company has towards its customers. A model that has proven to fit well regarding the matching of assets and liabilities is the Asset Liability Management Model (ALM model). In addition to the matching in the balance sheet, the ALM model can be used in a company's work with strategic portfolio allocation by applying it as a basis for analyzing investment strategies with expected risk and return. From this, the ALM model also becomes relevant for calculating key figures according to the legal framework Solvens II which includes laws and regulations regarding the demands on economical strength (solvens) of insurance companies.Hence, the goal of this masters thesis has been to, on behalf of Bliwa Livförsäkring, create an ALM model to support the asset management department of Bliwa in their work with defining a credible way of analyzing the future risk and return of Bliwa's asset portfolio and insurance undertakings.The ALM model generally consist of four submodels, the scenario model, the liability model, the asset model and the company model, where the scenario model often is named as the core of the ALM model. The course of action has been to develop these submodels individually, with focus on the scenario model.

The purpose of this essay has been to investigate the research and national initiatives regarding film and Cineliteracy in the Swedish curriculum.The results show that, after all research, national initiatives and the continual clarification from the Swedish National Agency for Education concerning film's place in the Swedish subject, the vision of students cineliteracy not at all obtain an obvious place in the curriculum.The research points out the main causes behind this result to be teachers' lack of expertise and the fact that the formal education for future teachers in the subject still upholds traditional views on the subject of Swedish.The initiative presented in this essay also show lack of continuity, lack of adequate professional development opportunities for teachers and lack of practical guidance manuals to help teachers to develop and educate their pupils in line with current research and visions. .

Girls in honour cultures have been the subject of many studies and are often debated in the media. The purpose with this study was to focus on boys in honour cultures. I wanted to understand the situation of boys in honour cultures with a perspective of the rights of children. My central questions were: How is it to be a boy in honour cultures? Are boys in honour cultures exposed? How are they exposed? My study was a qualitative study in which I interviewed four professionals who meet boys in honour cultures in their work.

Our purpose with this paper was to examine what effect a parent's drinking problem can have for the children in the family. A combination of literature study and qualitative interview analysis was used. The most important research questions were: How do the parent's problems affect the child? In what ways can the social network around the child help it to develop normally despite problems in the home environment? To what extent a parent's drinking problem affects a child depends on many different factors. Based on earlier research and interview data we drew the conclusion that growing up in a family where a parent has a drinking problem has a negative effect on all children.

To create a more accessible environment for disabled people, the Swedish government, in the year of 2001, made the national act of easily eliminated obstacles valid. This national act states that all easily eliminated obstacles in the municipalities, in places and in premises that are public, shall be removed before the end of 2010, no matter if the owner of the place or premise is private or public. According to Boverket, most of the municipalities are not going to be able to reach that goal, why? The aim of this thesis is to compare the two municipalities Kalmar and Karlskrona in their way of implementing this national act, to see where it went wrong and why. By using implementation theories and qualitative empirical data in the form of interwievs with the total of eight people from different administrations in both of the municipalities, the subject was analyzed and discussed.

Financial exploitation of children worldwide is a global problem, causing consequences for both the national economy and labor market, as well as the working child who is deprived of its rights of education and normal development. Pakistan has several national laws in order to work against and to regulate the existence of child labour. Another important mechanism to fight the financial exploitation of the children is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This Convention was ratified by Pakistan in 1990. As a result, new national laws have been admitted, already existing laws have been amended, educational projects have been established and the common knowledge on the problems regarding the subject have attracted a lot of attention.

The purpose of the essay is to, in retrospect, take a closer look at how the young people experienced their placement for assessment at Albogården and what it resulted in. With this purpose I inadvertently came to look at other aspects, for instance their lives before and after the placement.The underlying questions were:* The young people social situations before the placement?* The experience of being locked up?* What was it like being analysed?* What are the young people's thoughts on the methods of working at Albogården - rules, procedures, methods etc.?* What were the results from the placement at Albogården? Did something change in the young people's social situations?To answer my questions I interviewed four persons that previously were placed for assessment. To ascertain information on how the assessment is done I also interviewed the director of Albogården. I also studied relevant literature.The investigation showed that a majority of the young people didn't understand the purpose or felt participant in the assessment, being restless and locked up felt extremely arduous and violating.

The intention of this study was to examine how social workers, leaders within the social work administration and politicians in the social work committee in Helsingborg related to residential treatment of youth and the research showing signs of undesirable results.The main questions were:1. How do social workers, leaders within the social work administration and politicians in the social work committee relate to residential treatment of youth and the research existing about it?2. Which factors do the different categories mean justify the placements?3.

In Sweden there is an integration policy and a policy for national minorities. The integration policy aims to integrate newly arrived immigrants (nyanlända invandrare), whereas the minority policy aims to maintain and strengthen the rights of the national minorities. The national minorities are though, at times, included into the integration policy, even though they hold a minority status in Sweden. This paper aims to, through discourse analysis, investigate the research question: ?how is the content of integration referred to, when it is related to immigrants, contra when it is related to national minorities?.

We are two students named Susanne Grönlund and Anna Zaar and have jointly worked together this c-essay called "dignity and well-being according to whom? The paper is written at Högskolan dalarna in Falun.The purpose of this study was to investigate how the elderly and assistance officer describes dignity and well-being and how it is consistent with the government's bill on the national values that the National Board has developed.Our empirical study consists of four qualitative interviews, two older people dependent on community care and two assistance officers. The study's theoretical basis is Antonovsky's salutogenic approach and SOC. The survey focuses on different themes such as dignity, integrity, participation, treatment, wellbeing, security and meaningfulness which are also central themes in the Government Bill on the national values for elderly.The results show that the respondents believe that a life of dignity is difficult to define and also a subjective experience. The results also show a consistency between what the elderly, assistance officer and the national values that define dignity and well-being.

The aim of my thesis is to unveil orientalistic powerstructures in the new national curriculum for religious studies in Swedish upper secondary schools. Western imperialism and modernistic ideals has formed the Swedish perception of what constitutes as Swedish, this perception also influences the Swedish religious understanding. This understanding is imbedded in the national curriculum for religious studies which enables a western hegemony to prevail..