Sara Lidman?s second novel Hjortronlandet (1955) unfolds in the north of Sweden in the early 20th century. It describes the progress of modernity and the conflicting interests of an old local culture and a new more ?civilised? one. The two cultures are constituted by different value systems and in the novel they are represented by two neighbour communities.

Social work in Sweden has historically been mostly done by the public sector andthe work has been regulated by law. In the last two decades, private and voluntaryactors have played an important role as providers of welfare state; one of theseplayers is the Swedish Church. The aim of this thesis has been to describe thework the deacons perform in the Swedish Church in a medium-sized municipalityin Sweden. To find out how much freedom of action the deacons themselves feelthat they have and if they feel that their work is influenced by the social work thatother performers are doing. In order to reach the goal, a qualitative approach wasused where seven deacons were interviewed.

 The purpose of this study was to study social work models to explain addiction in the assessment of response to people with addictions. This study investigated how social workers' explanations are shaped by their experiences, theoretical points influenced by research in a discretion is affected by organizational conditions, manuals, evidence-based practice and national guidelines in an investigative process. The material in this study has emerged through interviews with four social workers in the social services department for addiction and dependence. The essay is a qualitative study with personal interviews as the basis for the result. The study begins with a description of addiction and dependence, current laws on the matter, and officer's work.

This essay is about integration of theoretical subjects and practical subjects at the vocational training education in a Swedish Upper secondary school. The purpose of the essay was to examine if integration of the subjects increases the students` motivation for, interest in and knowledge of the subject Swedish. Other purposes were to examine how the teachers organize their teaching of Swedish in order to adjust it to the students? interests and to examine the students? attitude towards Swedish as a subject.The essay also describes the recent development of the vocational training education of Swedish Upper secondary school and presents theories about learning and other examinations about teaching of theoretical subjects at the vocational training education.The examination carried through with a questionnaire which was distributed to the students at three programs at the school and interviews with the headmaster and two teachers. The result of the study showed that a small majority of the students believe that integration increases their motivation in and knowledge of Swedish.

The aim of this study was to investigate how preschool teachers think about preschoolscience, what they consider science to be and how they deal with specific curricular objectivesrelated to science.Science is a part of our everyday life, it is a prerequisite for understanding everydayphenomena and how the world is working. Nevertheless it is often dropped in favour of othersubjects in Swedish preschools.The eight preschool teachers participating in this study are all working in the samemunicipality in the western part of Sweden with children aged 1- 5 years. The method used inthis study was interviews. The interviews were recorded to facilitate the transcriptions.The results show that preschool teachers find that science is an important subject that shouldbe introduced to the children early on in life. They also show that preschool teachers considerscience to have a preventive effect on the learning to the children, and it is needed for them tounderstand everyday processes and phenomena.

The purpose of the study is to investigate educators? attitudes and didactic positions on popular culture as a form and a means of children?s learning in preschool. The questions posed in the study are:? How do the educators define popular culture, which examples of popular culture do the educators give?? How do the educators describe the spoken and unspoken rules and positions regarding popular culture in preschool practice?? What are the risks and benefits when including popular culture in preschool, according to the educators?In this qualitative study four educators from different preschools have been interviewed. The preschools take as a starting point different educational philosofies.

As a teacher in baking and patisserie courses there can be difficulties in following the curriculum for Patisserie 1. If this leads to an education that is not the same for all the schools in the country, it creates a problem that has to be solved. The results of this investigation show that teachers generally do not follow the curriculum but instead chooses their own solutions. Some conclusions that have come forth are that the National Agency for Education needs to make the curriculum clearer and give tangible examples of products, that can either be classified as easy or complicated, in the field of baking and pastry courses. I have chosen the standardized interview method.

The purpose of this study was to examine how small-scale private forest ownersmake decisions regarding pre-commercial thinning. In 2015 it is ten years agosince the storm Gudrun hit the southern parts of Sweden and now large areas arein need of pre-commercial thinning. This study is built upon qualitativeinterviews with seven small-scale private forest owners with forest properties inthe county Kronoberg. The respondents were chosen by the modelSKOGSÄGARPROFILENTM (forest owner profile).The results of the interviews showed that five categories: ownership, the stormGudrun´s impact, silviculture, forestry contacts and driving force was important.How will their purpose and aim affect the pre-commercial thinning? Personalinterests, and expectations of the next generation to take over, are purposes thisstudy has found.

The purpose of this report is to increase the awareness about the problem that occur when the waste hierarchy is applied to management of contaminated land. The work with remediation of contaminated land in Sweden is part of the efforts towards reaching the national environmental objectives. Therefore a subsidiary aim is to analyze how this influences the prospects of reaching the objectives. The work consists of two parts; a case study and a comparative literature study that focus on England, the Netherlands and Sweden. The case study is intended to provide a practical perspective through a comparison of the climate impact from two methods.

This thesis has aimed to study steering process and institutionalization in the context of educational policy work. This has been conducted by using empirical material from the political decision-making process that preceded the implementation of a new national program on how principals should be educated and certified. By using an aggregated theoretical point of view containing new institutionalism and traditional Swedish curriculum theory, the process was analyzed from different perspectives. The results depict a process that contained several actors who tried to shape the principal education program differently. From the theoretical perspectives, the decision-making process could be understood as an act of both self-interest as well as trust in their own beliefs and cultural values.

This master thesis is based on the sociocultural perspective. A qualitative research study was conducted to investigate children's attitudes towards reading, texts and libraries.The theoretical background is constituted by ideas from the new sociology of childhood, literacy-studies and reader-response theory.The study was conducted with 23 children, 13 girls and 10 boys, participating in focus groups.The results of the study reveal that children's literacy-activities in school are strongly influenced and limited by adults. Children's interest in pictures and non-fiction-reading do not correspond to the school institution that favors traditional media and fiction. The study also reveals a gender division between children's literacy-activities that tends to grow with age. All the children in the study regard libraries as book-houses and wished for libraries that combine activity and serenity.The thesis shows the importance of being aware of, and engage in, children's reading-interests and reading-practices if the reading stimulating activities in schools and libraries are to be successful.

The objective of this study was to make an inventory and a potential analysis of the organic beef production in the region of Gävleborg, Sweden. A survey was conducted, where a questionaire was sent to all farmers in the region who had environmental subsidies concerning organic cropping systems in 2001. In total, there were 701 farmers, of which 46 % participated in the study. Three slaughter houses were interviewed to get their pictures of the development of organic beef production. The study shows that there are potentials and interests in the region to increase the production of organic beef.

Mastitis is an important disease in dairy cattle. It is very costly for the farmers and affects a large number of animals. Few studies have been made investigating the outcome of treatment for acute clinical mastitis under Swedish conditions, and it can be problematic to use the results in foreign studies since both the microbial flora as well as treatments may be different from the situation in Sweden. In this project we have investigated data on clinical mastitis and antibiotic treatment in the dairy herd at Jällaskolan, Uppsala based on recordings during the last ten years. The material includes both Swedish Red (SRB) and Swedish Holstein (SLB) breeds, which have been kept at the farm under similar conditions.

Construction projects are generally designed as a general contract or a complete contract. In a general contract the commercial contract that is being used is AB 04 and related advice and instructions, AMA AF 07. In AB 04 there is an insurance requirement that stipulates that the contractor shall take all risks and liability insurance for the contract where the client must be co-insured.Construction law is almost exclusively regulated by the various standard contracts, one of those is AB 04. The Construction Contracts Committe is an organization that has published the standard contracts in this area of law and also the advice and instructions to help the parties to understand the agreements. The insurance requirement occurs in an area of law that is complex and the meaning of the concept is not entirely clear, nor which of the parties? interests and responsibilities that are covered by the types of insurances that are provided by the insurance requirement.

Gender equality is a political issue that has gained a lot of support in the last decades. Researchers have however pointed out that gender equality has a wide variety of understandings.SKL (Sveriges kommuner och landsting) is an organization that looks after the interests of local authorities and county councils in Sweden. SKL has by the government been granted 145 million Swedish crowns to support gender mainstreaming at a local level. During a period of three years, 2008-2010, funding has been given to 89 projects for this purpose.The aim of this study is to examine what meanings are given to the term ?gender equality? in these projects.