ABSTRACT Within migration and globalization the concept of ethnic identity, religious identity and belonging have come to play a significant role in both immigrants? lives and as well in social context. Sweden, as a multicultural society has been dealing with different ethnic groups of immigrants and the way these minority groups perceive themselves to be and how they are perceived by others in the society has also come to be of high importance. By migrating people also change their position. They often occupy inferior positions in the society when they settle down in the new country.

ABSTRACT This research explores how the Work Integration Center (AIC) supports unemployed immigrants in acquiring jobs and how the practical work helps immigrants in entering the labour market. It employs qualitative research approach through semi-structured interviews staff members at AIC and municipal commissioners of education and labour market in the municipality of Malmö. Its aim is to examine how governmental setup guidelines were represented in the practical work. These guiding principles of the organization are presented at the top of municipality. The findings suggest that even if the staff has no knowledge of the official measures of the integration plans, they have implemented the aims and criteria in their work with the immigrants.

Purpose: From an activity-perspective examine the meaning of housing accessibility and older persons´ perception of participation. Method: Systematic literature review of articles searched in the databases, Medline, Pubmed, Ahmed, Cinahl, Scopus and Google Scholar. Search on individual keywords, and in various combinations of the words home environment, home modification, occupational therapy, aging, accessibility and participation. Nine scientific articles were examined. Results: The articles were published between 2005 and 2009.

The aim of this thesis is to seek understanding to how a national identity is constructed. Five women and five men at the age of 21-37 years old have been interviewed during November 2005 and January 2006. All of them lived Oslo at the time. The informants have been divided into two groups, `Swedish immigrants` and `Norwegian immigrants`, none of the people interviewed is ethnic `Swedish` or `Norwegian`. The empirical material has been analysed with the help of Billig´s theory about banal nationalism and Laclau and Mouffe´s discourse analysis.

Sweden is divided according to an ethnic boundary, which divides people in "we" and "the others", "Swedes" and "immigrants" (Ålund, 2002). We believe this is due to the fact that society categorises immigrants all the time as a homogeneous group with fixed and static qualities, resulting in a situation where you cannot represent yourself as a person. Instead you are represented on the basis of your ethnic belonging. Young immigrants often grow up under other conditions and find themselves in more vulnerable situations than Swedish youths. The purpose with this paper was to investigate young people with different ethnic backgrounds, their thoughts and feelings about their identity, group belongingness and future.

Title: Older people's experiences of exercise training: a survey based on a descriptive design.Course: Public Health: Theory and method of application and degree, 30 credits. University of Gävle, health education program.Author: Helena AnderssonPurpose: According to earlier research the western population is aging. This may affect, the older peoples`s physical disability in one form or another. The consequences may be that the need off care can increase. However elderly can prevent a variety of age-related diseases by being physically active.

Purpose/aim: The purpose is to get increased knowledge about how the communication had developed from the first contact online to the first meeting in real life and even after when it had turned into a real relationship. I also wanted to know why the eight women I interviewed experienced that the Internet is a good venue to meet and develop a real relationship at and if there existed any differences between those four women who were a bit older and those four women who were young.Material/method: When the purpose with this survey stood clear I decided to use interviews as the method to find out more about my subject. I decided to do eight interviews and I contacted eight women who all found their partners online that were willing to help me and answer my interview questions. I did six of the total eight interviews through MSN Messenger and the other two through the telephone.Main results: I found out that three of the older women had used e-mail and telephone and sometimes SMS communication to find out more about their soon to be partner and after that decided to meet the other person in real life. One of the older women and all four of the younger ones had used a Community and Instant Messenger to communicate with their soon to be partner, they also used the telephone and SMS to communicate with each other but Instant Messenger was the medium that dominated in their wish to communicate.

The purpose of this study was to inquire how social workers perceive and describe financial abuse of older persons. Six qualitative interviews were carried out and the assembled data was then categorized and analyzed using a theory considering exercise of power and ageism as a theoretical frame. Previous research has shown that at least 10% of older persons have been exposed to some form of abuse or violence; however, there is a lack of research carried out in a Swedish context regarding financial abuse specifically. The six persons interviewed in this study all presented financial abuse as some kind of violence and as previous research has shown the study suggests that this is an increasing problem. Further research ought to be carried out to increase the awareness of this particular form of abuse and to facilitate discovery and development of measures to prevent financial abuse of older persons.

The house of one of the most prominent Swedish artists of the 20th century, Bror Hjorth (1894-1968), was turned into an artists-museum and opened to the public in 1978. It has since the start held pedagogical activities and during the years developed its own pedagogical approach.I have studied the museums pedagogical work from two perspectives; visiting groups of immigrants and visiting groups of schoolchildren, in search of answers to the questions; can art be used as a way to integrate immigrants into the swedish society, and can artmuseums be a resource for schools?This essay contains my observations, conclusions and theories as well as general facts about Bror Hjorths House..

AbstractThis thesis is centered on the economic condition and background of immigrants living in Sweden, with focus on Araby, Växjö. To guide us through this enormous work we formulated research questions, which are:Why have foreigners (immigrants) a greater risk of becoming economic vulnerable? How does economic vulnerability effect families with children?What strategies do families adopt under hard economic conditions? What strategies does the society adopt in assisting families, by economic aid, that are economic vulnerable?  Our sample was from a school where we administered an open ended questionnaire to selected students and we also had a comprehensive interview session with ten families in the community so as to have a complete picture of their living condition and how they think people are economically vulnerable.We concentrated on the causes, consequences and strategies of how economic vulnerability is handled by immigrants in Sweden. In our analysis we found out, though our respondents? answers, that the causes of economic vulnerable are background, language, priorities et cetera.

Immigrants and children of immigrants are statistically lumped together into a category of "person with foreign background". Blatte is a degrading and violating word when directed at immigrants by Swedes. The aim of my essay was to test to what extent the Swedish term "blatte" could be qualified as an ethnicity in the sense that young people with foreign background born between 1981 and 1984 living in a neighborhood with a high population of people with foreign backgrounds have another ethnicity, besides the Swedish and the "home country ethnicity" to find themselves and their identity in.My method consisted of interviewing six people between the ages of 21 and 24 with different ethnic backgrounds living in a limited area of Malmö, Sweden´s third biggest city. I tested my hypothesis of these people having a third ethnicity to relate to against three schools and from two out of three schools defending my hypothesis, my result is that blatte can not fully be seen as an ethnicity but definitely shows tendencies of becoming one in the future..

Title: Older people's experiences of exercise training: a survey based on a descriptive design.Course: Public Health: Theory and method of application and degree, 30 credits. University of Gävle, health education program.Author: Helena AnderssonPurpose: According to earlier research the western population is aging. This may affect, the older peoples`s physical disability in one form or another. The consequences may be that the need off care can increase. However elderly can prevent a variety of age-related diseases by being physically active.

This work deals with the introductory course for immigrants (Introduktionskurs för invandrare ? IVIK) in the Swedish municipalities. I have studied how the participants in this education are brought into a Swedish understanding of religion, both in the formal SO (social studies) and when it comes to informal transferring of values.I have interviewed teachers and school leaders, interviews which I have then analysed.To understand the educational environment, I have used Antonio Gramsci´s theory of hegemony, as I perceive it, as well as Michel Foucault´s ideas of power and knowledge.I have found that fostering into a ?Swedish? view on religion appears in the education, implicitly as well as explicitly, though the informants tend to have an ambivalent opinion as to how this should be carried out, and to which extent..

The aim of this study was to reach an understanding of how young adults with permanent residence permit, who came to Sweden as unaccompanied asylum seeking minors, experience their confrontation with the Swedish society. Another purpose was to understand how these young adults view Sweden and its inhabitants, as well as the experience of starting a new life in Sweden. In order to investigate these questions, a qualitative method consisting of five interviews with five young men was conducted.The results showed that the respondents feared the meeting with the immigration board and that they feel that school is divided in two groups, Swedes and immigrants. People with nonethnic Swedish background who have lived in Sweden for a long time are seen as Swedes, and in that meaning assimilated. One important conclusion we made was that the division between Swedes and immigrants have a negative influence on the immigrants´ integration in the society.

The objective of this paper is to describe and analyze female irregular immigrants and their experience of how relationships with other people affect their lives and identity.A qualitative method is used in the study, because my main purpose is to analyse the respondents? lives and life experiences. The analysis is based on a symbolic interactionism perspective. The results are also analyzed based on previous research and the concepts underlying the paper; irregular immigrants, discrimination, power and identity.In summary, the respondents have a clear picture of how they live and experience their relationship to others and themselves and how this affects their lives and identity.Their experiences affect their lives and influence their behaviour and identity when they interact with others. Their own view of their situation means that they are afraid to seek care or report sexual abuse, threats or other similar conditions.