The special relationship between Israel and the US has been subject to questioning, and good many theories have tried to explain why it is so strong. The most common explanation is rooted in the school of realism, where strategy and national interest decide who one's ally is. This essay aspires to examine another possible reason for allianceformation; identity. Several books, which make for the theoretical backbone of this study, have been written on the subject of sharing beliefs, identifying with others and the consequences of this. The question being asked is whether Israel and the US actually share beliefs and, if so, which ones.

This study aims to examine attitudes and conceptions of staff who work with mentally disabled persons, concerning normalization and gender. Six qualitative interviews with such professionals were performed and subsequently analyzed. Since the method of this study is qualitative, no claim of generalizability is made. The interview material has been categorized into themes by means of coding. The result of the study is presented according to those themes.

The purpose of this study is to examine discussions on the Swedish internet forum ?Flashback? regarding female body hair and the cultural norms that surround it. The discussion is centered around a broadcasted event in which a woman?s hairy armpit was incidentally shown, with a lot of viral hate as a result. Our purpose with this study is to get a deeper insight into viral hate towards women who challenge gender norms.

The aim with this masters thesis is to investigate how gender is presented in Swedish picture books, in order to give librarians and other actors in the field knowledge about what kind of books they supply impressionable children with. I investigate if and how the changes concerning gender-equality in the Swedish society during the last 25 years are reflected in childrens literature, and compare how men and women are portrayed in four books from the early 1980s with four books from the 2000s. My study is delimited to three aspects of character formation, introduced by Maria Nikolajeva: description of psychology, actions and relations to other characters. It is carried through by consultation of Yvonne Hirdmans theory of how men and women are held apart and that the man in this relation constitutes the norm as well as Nikolajevas list of typical male and female characteristics. By reading and interpreting the chosen books, I analyse both text and pictures.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how a context-specific form of abstracting of fiction film developed in relation to the cultural policy of Internationella biblioteket IB, theoretically can be motivated and practically shaped. The background of the cultural policy of IB is analysed and theoretical standpoints and problematic aspects regarding subject representation discussed. Theories which claim intersubjectivity as an ideal for subject representation and searches for objectivity in the process of subject analysis are criticised in light of the concept of interpretation as the only means to produce meaning and subjects in relation to fiction. Birger Hjørlands context-oriented theories of subject representation are used to theoretically motivate the context-specific form of abstracting. To suggest how a practical framework for abstracting can be created, film theoretical models of interpretation are examined in relation to the field of subject analysis and formal criteria of abstracting.

Research reports as PISA and PIRLS show that reading comprehension among Swedish students have deteriorated in recent years and that girls have better reading comprehension than boys. The basis for this study is Maj-Gun Johansson's reading comprehension test done during the four years between the years 2005-2008 in the seventh grade in a municipality in Sweden. The main purpose of this study is to examine reading literacy in terms of the influence of content and form of texts viewed from a gender perspective. The study is divided into two parts. The first part is a survey on local reading comprehension compared with results from a similar national text.

The EU guarantees the free movement of persons. The citizens of the EU Member States have the right to move freely without barriers within the EU borders and this result in an integration of the peoples in Europe. The integration result in several international family relationships. It is not unusual in the present situation that families have international relations. For example, spouses in a married couple may have different nationality.

The Swedish Armed Forces tend to ask themselves if it is sufficiently multinational interoperablefor participation in international operations. An equally valid question today should be whether theSwedish Armed Forces are sufficiently nationally / internally interoperable, between their branchesof service, to be able to conduct independent operations based on the joint warfare theory.The lack of ability to joint warfare in the armed forces in general and the Swedish Armed Forcesspecially constitutes the essay´s fundamental problem. By using Codners and Sjöbloms custominteroperability theory, the Swedish Armed Forces documents were analyzed to highlight anyweaknesses related to joint warfare and national interoperability between Ground and Air Forces.The survey shows weaknesses linked to the custom theory and Swedish Armed Forces governingdocuments. The ability of a national interoperability is limited between Ground and Air Forcestoday, mostly because of weaknesses in the Swedish Armed Forces strategic concept which doesnot describe the importance of joint warfare at all levels sufficiently. This leads to deficienciesreflected in doctrines, regulations, technology, techniques and exercises.

The thesis contains mainly personal experiences relating to classical piano improvisation, based on the CD record Härlig är jorden, Piano improvisations in Various Classical Styles. Sex classics: Mozart, Stravinsky, Bartók, Chopin, Debussy and Liszt play the main roles in that record.The idea is (apart from aiming at stimulationg the styles as faithfully as possible) to look at the various classical styles as different musical rooms created by the composers for us to enter and use. It is also a personal pedagogical goal to structure my ideas, including formulating the strongest possible requirements on the quality of my improvisations. A leading theme manifesting itself in different quises (depending on the style used) is not only a means for improving quality further. The audience has shown a great interest in this form.

This study aims to evaluate the waste management in Norrbottens municipalities in key areas such as possibilities to reach the two national waste goals, information to the public, the effect of legislation, future of waste management and differences in geographic- and demographic areas. The Waste Framework Directive (WFD) issued by the EU and incorporated into Swedish law plays a major part in waste management by defining a hierarchy in five steps how waste should be treated. Interviews conducted with each of the fourteen municipalities aimed to find out what step in the hierarchy they are at and what effect the implementation of EU-legislature into Swedish law has had. Based on the interviews a diverse range of answers was found in relation to the questions asked, generally the more populated municipalities saw a more positive future of waste management, mainly because more developed infrastructure to handle waste is already in place. However the smaller the municipality is the harder it is to allocate resources for waste management and problems arise in the form of expensive transports of waste.

 Abstract The purpose with this study is to study the individual setting of salary rates among branch heads. We have chosen to look deeper into which criteria that are the base for the branch heads? individual setting of wage rates within geriatric care and the care of disabled people. One other aspect we have looked into is how the setting of salary rates appears from a gender perspective. The empirical material in our thesis consists of both qualitative and quantitative methods in the shape of a questionnaire study and three open interviews.

The main purpose of this thesis is to examine how the European Union through the Directorate- General (DG) of Education and Culture, are calling forth a constructed sense of European identity amongst the citizens of the Union.It is a discourse analysis, which can be described in twofold. Firstly, it is a mapping of the European discourse; i.e. how the European Union defines the identity it seeks to mobilise. Secondly, it examines whether or not there are similarities in the European discourse of identity and the traditional nation-building discourse of national identity.According to this thesis a European identity is articulated in cultural terms, whereby its members are said to share the same values and a common cultural heritage.To bring the people of Europe closer together and to deepen awareness of their "common" history, the European Union encourages all manner of meetings and exchange schemes between Europeans. Although its goal is to develop a feeling of belonging to a shared culture, the EU is also keen to preserve the specific aspects of Europe's many cultures.

AbstractIt is unclear how L2 students acquire vocabulary ? how is it taught ? or wheather it can even be taught. In an SSL (Swedish as second language) program for young adults the ambition has been to integrate the L2 students? into the national high school (gymnasium) courses as quickly as possible, in order to meet the students? demands for subject education and to challenge them on an appropriate knowledge level. Teachers noticed quite early that the course ? integrated L2 students seemed to have a deeper understanding of words and an easier flow in their speech.

This thesis studies the indirect effects of Europeanization on national political parties. I argue that Europeanization has affected the way national parties operate, and communicate with the voters, by restricting the national policy space through increased economic and political integration. Furthermore, I argue that the impact of Europeanization is likely to be reflected in electoral manifestos and changed patterns of party competition. Accordingly, Europeanization is hypothesized to change party rhetoric in a cartel-like manner by diminishing voters? expectations, and also by avoiding EU-affairs in electoral manifestos. The hypothesis suggests, moreover, that Europeanization is reflected in convergence among parties regarding the rhetoric concerning EU-affairs. The purpose of the thesis is to examine to what extent the rhetoric concerning EU-affairs has changed in electoral manifestos sinceSwedenjoined the European Union in 1995.

The following study explores the relation between psychosocial work environment and individual health. The purpose is to examine how female employees in the occupational health sector experience their own psychosocial work environment, focusing on different influencing factors in both the workplace and their private life regarding the employees own health. The study applies a hermeneutic approach in which qualitative interviews constitute the empirical data. Previous research on this particular subject has focused on the following themes: the combination of work-family life, demand/control model and flexibility in the workplace in relation to health and stress. The theoretical framework used in this study integrates relevant concepts, specifically SOC, poor leadership and flexibility.