The purpose of this masters thesis is to study two subject gate-ways within the field of Swedish higher education and academic research, concerning structuring and selection of Internet resources to facilitate information retrieval for their target groups, and also to study two co-operation projects in the same field, one national and one European, to see how the co-operation is being carried through and how the gateways in the projects can serve from a wider perspective. The gateways, AGORA and NOVAGate, are being studied mainly by their Web sites and two e-mail interviews with persons responsible for the gateways. Facts about the national project are principally based on an interview with BIBSAM. The European Renardus is being studied out of articles and information on the Web site. From the results of the study it is being clear that the purpose of the gateways is to make a quality-selection of information accessible via the Internet and thereby facilitate for their target groups to find usable information.

Sustainable development is a concept that has been interpreted in a multitude of ways in different contexts. This essay argues that the discourse of "ecological modernization" has strongly influenced the way in which the concept of ?sustainability? has been constructed in Swedish environmental policy. This interpretation of the concept of sustainability offers the possibility of combining economic growth with ecological sustainability which stands in contrast to the assumptions of Deep Ecology and Green Theory. The aim of this essay is to explore how the concept of sustainability is being formulated in environmental policy both on a national level and in the city of Malmö.Considering these issues in a specific context, this essay focuses on city planning that is as an important instrument to promote urban sustainability both on national and local levels.

Background: There is a newly founded national sports education program. This newly founded national sports program comprises of several different sports of which football is one of them. Before a football player can reach the European- or national elite the player usually is first developed in clubs and their respective academies where a lot of time is spent on fine tuning the players? individual skillsets.The main goal for the NIU program is to develop future elite athletes to different sports. When it comes to football, the Swedish Football Association and the Swedish school board have together developed a study plan which will serve as a guideline for the NIU-football classes in Sweden.

AbstractEver since Sweden joined EU Swedish law has to be compatible with EU law. Swedish law cannot state anything that may restrict the freedom of establishment. This means that companies are free to change their resident within the EU without any restrictions. National rules regarding exit tax states that companies who wants to move their business out of Sweden is taxed as if their assets has been disposed of at the exit time. These rules have been found to restrict EU law according to case RÅ 2008 ref 30.

Statistik från Skolverket (2006) visar att ungefär var femte elev i Upplands-Bro Kommun inte klarar det nationella ämnesprovet i svenska för skolår 5. Då vi har vår verksamhetsförlagda utbildning i denna kommun blev vi nyfikna på att undersöka detta närmare. Vi valde att utgå från ett lärarperspektiv och en lokal bild av lärarnas uppfattningar av det nationella ämnesprovet i svenska och hur de arbetar för att komma åt problemet. För att ta reda på det använde vi oss av intervjuer med åtta behöriga lärare. Vår studie utgår från två frågeställningar: Vilka faktorer kan enligt lärarna i Upplands-Bro Kommun påverka att en elev inte når de nationella målen i svenska? Vilka målstrategier har lärarna i Upplands-Bro Kommun för att eleverna ska uppnå de nationella målen? Med hjälp av teoretisk litteratur formas vår bakgrundsdel, med utgångspunkt från Skolverkets rapport (2001), ?Utan fullständiga betyg?, Bronfenbrenners utvecklingsekologiska teori, målen i svenska, det nationella ämnesprovens bakgrund och syfte, skolans ansvar och styrdokument och delar ur dagens skoldebatt.

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.

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..

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.

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.

The purpose with this study is to examine how the media coverage of the train accidentoutside Kimstad, on the night of September 12th 2010, was framed in one local (Norrköpingsnyheter) and one national newspaper (Expressen) and how the coverage of the accident wasdifferent in the local newspaper compared to the national newspaper.The material is 12 articles within a fixed time limit which is from September 13th toSeptember 15th. The material consists of six articles from each newspaper.The method we use a qualitative text analysis with its basis in medialogic, news value andframing theory.In the essay?s analysis we show a synthesis of both newspapers coverage of the train accidentoutside Kimstad and how they stand in relation to the theory of news value and we end with aterminative comment about the results.The conclusion shows that the coverage of the event was different in many ways. Expressenuses a more dramatic framing and a more sensational language which describes the eventmore badly than it was. NT uses a more informative and objective information which almosttrifles the event but which informs about relevant information for the locals.

Bergvik Skog is one of the leading forest companies in Sweden who use airborne laser scanning for forestry information. They utilize laser data retrieved by the Swedish National Land Survey to describe the forest holdings and facilitate planning for thinning and final felling operations. However, the possibility to identify stands with clearing needs by using laser scanning data has not been tested in a large scale. The data used in the current study are field data from The Swedish National Forest Inventory in combination with laser data from the Swedish National Land Survey acquired in 2009. The collected data is used to find one or several laser variables that best describe the relationship of the field measured samples with clearing needs.