The aim of this paper is to expand the debate on globalization and its consequences from a theoretical perspective emphasizing social processes of exclusion and inclusion. I explore these social processes in dialogue with the Spanish social movement for the rights of irregular immigrants. The paper also aims to explore new forms of resistance in the context of globalization."The declinist thesis" argues that globalization has lead to a declining importance of the nation-state and the national citizenship as guarantees of rights. "The anti-declinist thesis" oppose to this picture arguing that rights still depend on national policies. I also discuss the functions of exclusion and inclusion inherited in the concepts of citizenship and nation-state.I outline the historical and political context of the movement and explore the ideas and organizational dimensions of the movement's "knowledge praxis".I conclude that national citizenship - in a broader sense as a description of the relationship between the individual and the state - seems to play a crucial role in the life situation and the possibilities of irregular migrants to organize and protest.

This essay examines how humor is used in the making of stereotypes in the Kronlöf sister?s video SÅ JÄVLA PK! In addition I give my analysis of how power and resistance is shown in the video. Through Michel Foucault?s conception power and resistance together with Judith Butler?s theories about performativity I?d like to show how the characters you can see in the video, in addition to the humor, also put themselves in a public context. I discuss my material in relation to a number of similar and current events that concern sexism and racism in Sweden.

The Motor Group of the European Council was commissioned in the autumn of 1997 to prepare a proposal for a new European Bus and Coach Directive. In the beginning, most of the Member States did not have the accessibility requirements as their main concern; still a smaller network with actors from the National delegations from Britain, Germany and Sweden would influence the other National delegations in the Council group to finally agree to retain the requirement of accessibility of the Directive. Within the EU decision process, the European Disability movement acted as a strong player during the whole negotiation process using the proposal to a new Bus and Coach Directive as a tool to influence key actors to go towards a Directive with a strong approach for accessibility.Policy Transfer and Policy Transfer Network are used as analytical tools to understand and structure the transfer of the question of accessibility during the negotiation process. Actors understanding how the bureaucratic process works within the EU decision system have a chance to contributing for the changes in the directions they wishes for within a range of policy areas. The principal aim of the Directive was to guarantee the safety of passengers and to provide technical prescription in particular to wheelchair users.

This thesis analyzes contemporary Swedish discourse on Russia, i.e. the ways Russia and Russians are perceived in Sweden today. After a summary of historical Western and Swedish perceptions of Russia, and a discussion about the treatment of these tensions within modern research, contemporary Swedish discourse is reconstructed based upon analytical articles in three major newspapers during the period 1992-2007. It is argued that the prevailing image of Russia contains the reproduction of old stereotypes and prejudices. The five major representations of Russia in contemporary Swedish discourse are: non-Western, unreliable, authoritarian, threatening and eternal, with the last one being a meta-representation functioning both as a representation of its own and a mechanism for the reification of the others.

The level of increased central government that we have experienced during the last decades in school, for the purpose of increasing equality and to adapt the Swedish school to a certain international standard, clearly shows that increased control scarcely leads to improvement.The aim of this paper is to examine whether teachers believe that national tests contribute to equivalent assessment and increased goal attainment. Furthermore the teachers? attitude towards and work with national tests is described. The paper is written from a school improvement perspective, where good examples from current research on what creates increased quality in school meaning increased goal attainment and equivalent assessment are related to research on school effectiveness and increased testing in schools. The study builds upon a quantitative survey among teachers in upper primary - and secondary school in a medium-sized municipality in Sweden.The result shows that the teachers have a somewhat more positive than negative attitude towards national tests, as a whole.

In todays society the legal rights of the individual are a highly debated subject. Among other things there have been a debate going on in Dagens industri where the participants have discussed the National Tax Board, courts of law and law and order. The legal rights of the individual have been described as threatened and uncertain due to deficiencies in the tax assessment.There are difficulties defining the concept of law and order due to the fact that there is no generally acknowledged explanation. The concept of law and order originates from the citizens ability to predict the consequences of their actions provided that the authorities actions are regulated according to current legislation and will therefore protect the citizens from possible abuse of power that can exist within a state governed by the law.The purpose of this paper is to analyse law and order within the tax assessment through a method that experiments with real and imagined situations with the main purpose of interpreting current legislation. The paper collects essential legislation, preparatory work together with established practice and supplements the method with information from articles, dissertations and the National Tax Authority?s documented directions within the tax assessment.Through juridical argumentation concerning areas, such as legal rights essential to the citizens and the tax assessment, the paper results in aspects essential to the individual involved in tax dispute.

A group of companies that only recently has caught the attention of Swedish designers, enterprises and media are the so -called "furniture pirates". In Sweden it?s mainly two companies that have ended up in the spotlight. The online stores Ikon M and Designers Revolt are two companies which currently sell replicas of famous Swedish and foreign designers. Although the designs sold are copyright protected in Sweden, and most other European countries, the right holders can only stand by and watch as more or less exact copies are sold for a fraction of the price of the originals.The business model - to exploit the EU?s free movement of goods and the UK's short term of copyright protection in matter of mass-produced art (industrial design) - has proven successful for the companies that practice it.

The aim of this Bachelor´s thesis is to investigate how library statistics, performance measurement and indicators represent the modern public library activity. During the last decades the public library has gone through a lot of changes. Information overall has increased and new technology has been introduced into the library. This new development has had effects on the library users. The statistics reported to the Statens kulturråd (National Arts Council) has not changed in the same way.

A group of companies that only recently has caught the attention of Swedish designers, enterprises and media are the so -called "furniture pirates". In Sweden it?s mainly two companies that have ended up in the spotlight. The online stores Ikon M and Designers Revolt are two companies which currently sell replicas of famous Swedish and foreign designers. Although the designs sold are copyright protected in Sweden, and most other European countries, the right holders can only stand by and watch as more or less exact copies are sold for a fraction of the price of the originals.The business model - to exploit the EU?s free movement of goods and the UK's short term of copyright protection in matter of mass-produced art (industrial design) - has proven successful for the companies that practice it.

This study has the purpose to reveal whether gender stereotypes are manifested or challenged in the children comic Bamse - världens starkaste björn based on six different stories widespread over 40 years. The results will be studied in the light of the contemporary gender development in society and emanate from theories about power, discourse, representation, queer and gender. An eclectic analysis based on semiotics and critical discourse analysis will be the method to reveal the underlying gender perspective in Bamse. The conclusion of the study shows an ambiguous perspective in the comic where both men and women occasionally are represented in a manifested as well as a challenged stereotypical role. In some of the stories the gender is erased and all characters are represented based on their individual attributes instead, meanwhile in some stories men are represented as active heroes while women are portrayed as passive nurturer.

This essay focuses on how trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation is defined and dealt with in the Nordic countries. Agreements on how trafficking for sexual exploitations should be dealt with is presented in reports and Action plans from the European Union and United nations amongst others. In this essay we will compare four national Action plans made by governments by Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway between 2005- 2011 to each other. Mainly we have been looking at similarities and differences in the different Action plans. The essay is based on Discourse theory and discursive struggle and we have been looking at similarities and differences in how trafficking is dealt with through language.

Det finns stereotyper om kvinnor med olika hårfärg och stereotyper påverkar människors empati och bedömning. Därför gjordes ett kvasiexperiment där det undersöktes om en kvinnlig brottsling väcker olika mycket empati beroende på (a) vilken hårfärg hon har och (b) empatisörens kön. I studien deltog 132 personer, varav 61 kvinnor och designen var en enkät där experimentgruppen fick läsa om en gärningskvinna som antingen var blond, brunhårig, svarthårig eller rödhårig och därefter skatta empati utifrån Batsons empatiskala. Resultaten visade att (a) blondiner väcker minst empati medan rödhåriga väcker mest (b) kvinnor  känner högre empati än män och (c) empati stiger med åldern. Dessa resultat förklarades bland annat med att blondiner mer än rödhåriga ses som objekt i samhället och är därför mindre empativäckande, att kvinnor i högre grad än män förväntas vara empatiska då det är detta beteende som förväntas av kvinnorollen samt att empati är något som utvecklas med tiden..

The Swedish National Rail Administration has changed in the past decade, from its origin after a less dramatic separation from the Swedish State Railways to becoming an authority with its own identity. Today the National Rail Administration is a large organisation with several different departments, each with its own unique function. To operate train services the railway needs to be ?in shape?, leading to a need for maintenance, reinvestments and new investments. For this purpose, the National Rail Administration carries out public procurement where contractors, who are able to perform maintenance and new construction, submit tenders.

This thesis studies private equity firms' implementation of management control systems in their portfolio companies and whether the systems are affected by cross-national differences. A comparative case study examines five different private equity firms to derive if there are any differences between the private equity firms' management control systems in the United States, Europe and China. The empirical observations are categorized according to the framework developed by Merchant (1985) and further developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003). Theory on the effect of multinationality on management control systems, also developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003), are used to explain possible findings. The applied theory includes the cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede (1984) and Hofstede and Bond (1988).

When being in preschool, I have come across children who I have had difficulties to really meet, and I have felt that the communication between me and the child has been deficient. Since I believe that the meeting of child and pedagogue is essential to learning and development, I find this an important subject of further study.The purpose of my study is to investigate if, and how, teachers regard a possible connection between language capability and behaviour. Furthermore I investigate how they work with language acquisition and communication, and what argument the pedagogues have for this work.To answer these questions I have interviewed two pedagogues who have great knowledge and experience of this subject, and also have special interest in children?s language and communication.In my literary review I give an account of how language acquisition is described in literature, and then compare it with how language impairment reveals. I also describe earlier research on how to work with language development, and what the national curriculum for preschools (Lpfö 98) say on this topic.The result shows that my informants divide in their view of how to connect language capability to behaviour.