In Sweden approximately ten percent of all children grows up in a family where at least one parent is having an alcohol related addiction. Since 1998 the development of group activities for children in this situation has been immense. The aim of group activities is to break the child's isolation and make them feel that they are not lonely in their experiences, give them knowledge about addiction and relive the pressure of guilt and responsibility.In a comparative study we examined studied how two different group activity models one with the conception of illness and one without, use the children's network to support the group process. The aim was also to find each models definition of the "normal family", since we understood the groupactivity as a part in the normalization process. We reached our aim through interviews with group leaders and by literature studies.

Our understanding is that responsibility is shifting from the community towards the individual within the field of social work. This resulted in our essay, which aims to study how the representatives within social service assistance and churches in Helsingborg work with personal power. Our aim is also to illustrate how these representatives view the boundaries of responsibility between the individual and the community. Our questions are: How do the representatives work with personal power from a micro and macro perspective? How do the representatives look upon their position as representatives? What do the representatives consider as responsibility of the individual respective the community? And; Are there preventing factors from individual responsibility? We obtained our empirical material from a qualitative method consisting of interviews.

I have done a qualitative literature study, in which the data consisted of descriptions of drug abuse in ten social inquiry text documents (that also are applications for institutional care) concerning teenagers. Social welfare secretaries representing two social welfare offices in Malmö, has written the text documents. The purpose of this essay was to examine thedescriptions and, if possible, try to make out and describe stereotyped themes and patterns depending on gender. To obtain the purpose of this essay I searched for answers of the following three central questions:- What appears to be the social welfare secretary's purpose in describing the teenager's drug abuse?- How is the parameter gender related to the descriptions of drug abuse in the social inquiry text documents?- How are other possible gender-stereotyped descriptions of the teenager related to the descriptions of drug abuse?In the analysis of the descriptions, which where the foundation of the study, I found patterns in describing drug abuse depending on gender.

The purpose of this study is to analyse how the local governments have implanted the new public health policy, which Sweden adopted in April 2003. The new health policy stakes out a new direction for national public health policy. Instead of focusing on diseases the new public health policy focus in factors that determine health.Important factors to study are the role of central steering from the central government. The method used is a case study of three Swedish local governments. The main material used is interviews and different policy documents within the area of public health.The conclusion of the study shows that the local governments are fairly satisfied with the steering of public health policy by the central government.

Vår studie syftar till att genom empiriska studier ta reda på sex enskilda lärares uppfattningar om den första tiden som yrkesverksam. Vi vill identifiera de faktorer som under perioden upplevs som de största utmaningarna. Det finns ett samhälleligt intresse i den här frågan eftersom många lärare under sin första tid väljer att lämna yrket. Vi gjorde kvalitativa intervjuer med sex olika lärare som arbetat från ett till åtta år. Parallellt med intervjuerna genomförde vi litteraturstudier för att sätta oss in i ämnet och se vad tidigare forskning kommit fram till.

The object of this essay was to illustrate and analyse what determines that a contract treatment investigation for a drug addict is initiated and what factors influence the investigation itself, from the probation service officer's perspective.We selected the following two questions:- What does the probation service officer see as being the deciding factor for a contract treatment investigation to be initiated?- What questions appear in a contract treatment investigation and how do they influence the investigation, according to the probation service officer?To find answers to these questions we conducted interviews with 11 probation service officers, during November and December 2005, at three different locations across Skåne. We decided to use the qualitative method for collecting the data we needed.In our essay we came to the conclusion that the will and motivation of the client is a deciding factor whether or not a contract treatment investigation is to be initiated. An important collaborator in this process is the social services. According to the probation service officers, many of the problems that may appear in the co-operation are due to the tough economic constraints experienced by the social services.

This study rises up an untouched area of ??research where the relationship between newly arrived parents and teachers is examined from a structural perspective. Previous research has looked only at the interaction between parents and teacher; this study is thus a theoretical contribution to the research. The aim of the study is met by examining the perceptions newly arrived parents have of their meeting with the Swedish school, the relationship with their children?s teacher, cooperation, collaboration between home and school, as well as their own influence in their children's learning.

The thesis explores representations of fatherhood in the Swedish blog 'Hemliga pappan' ('Secret/Anonymous Daddy'). The purpose is to identify three themes in the blog material; The Father, The Son and The Partner. I have performed this study using discourse analysis as methodological tool and Critical Studies on Masculinities and Fatherhood as theoretic approach. The theories are Social Constructionist and consist of sociologists and socio-psychologists as Connell, Hearn and Johansson. Important theoretic concepts are the presence and absence of the father as well as hegemonic masculinity.

The intention of this essay was to describe and analyse the participant's experience in a work project based on a holistic model. The main purpose of the project was to integrate homeless people back into society. My main questions were: 1. What meaning did the project have in the participant's life? 2.

This is an essay about love and gender representation in Håkan Hellström?s and Veronica Maggio?s lyrics. The purpose of this essay is to investigate how lyrics of indie-pop music represent gender, sexuality and love. The lyrics used is from love songs performed by Håkan Hellström and Veronica Maggio. The method for examining the lyrics of the love songs is discourse- theory and analysis.

The main purpose of this study was to examine, and illustrate, highschool social workers experiences of pupils with self-injurious behaviour. Self-injurious behaviour in this study refer to individuals who harm them-selves, with physical injury as consequence, without purpose to commit suicide. A qualitativ method was used and five highschool social workers, in the south of Sweden, were interviewed.The main questions were:- What kind of experiences have highschool welfare officers of pupils with self-injurious behaviour?- What view, and personal opinion have the welfare officers at the problem, and how do this affect them in their work with these pupils.The school social workers experiences of pupils with self- injurious behaviour, were for instance that the pupils often feel ashemed over their behaviour and that they often have lowe self-esteem. The social workers seemed to imagine the behaviour as a copingstrategy.It turned out that the social workers personality and their personal opinion regarding self-injurious behaviour, were of great importance in their work with these pupils..

The most common preventive and treatment service for children in child welfare services in Sweden is the contact family program. The number of children who are involved in the program has steadily increased. Usually it is a single mother who apply for or is offered this service. The aim with a contact family is that the parent should get respite and that the child should have its network enlarged and sometimes get a male role model.The purpose of this study was to look into how children´s perspective was considered in the contact family process. I have studied the process in order to see how it works and to see to what extent children is participating.

This thesis discusses the attitudes versus methadone assisted rehabilitation ad modum Dole Nyswander in Sweden during the period 1972-2004. This is done by means of a Foucault inspired discourse analysis applied on the directions issued by the Board of Health and Social Affairs. The context in which these directions were created is also described, in which scientific achievements on methadone treatments during the period, and the main actors struggling to establish and define the discourse on narcotics and narcomania, are juxtaposed to the effects of the work of the Board. It is stated that the directions were largely affected not by scientific results and knowledge on methadone, but by the symbolic connotations of narcotics in Sweden established in the discourse already in the mid 1960´s. Also during the end of the studied period, after the occurence of AIDS had begun making methadone more broadly accepted, the findings of this thesis showed that the legacy of the 1970´s symtomtheory and its severe antagonism against methadone, was still present, in effect, in the discourse around methadone and subutex assisted rehabilitation, and so in the directions issued by the Board of Health and Social Affairs..

This essay deals with 18 year old boys´ experience of their usage of pornography. My main focus was the pornography found on Internet, which includes pornographic films and nude pictures.Both developmental and social psychological perspectives were applied in the study. These theoretical perspectives were chosen, because boys´ view of sex, especially during their adolescence, are influenced by the increased supply of porn and that boys understanding of porn are influenced by values present in our society. The methods used were three focusgroups and a short survey with simple questions regarding pornography. The choice of methods was based on my standpoint that an open discussion concerning porn was less offensive of integrity, in comparison of working with individual interviews.

The purpose of this work was to research how baby nurses define the concept child maltreatment and how they conduct themselves to mandatory reporting.The central questions were; How do the baby nurses interpret the concept child maltreatment and which children do they consider comprehending the concept?What are the reasons that children are maltreated according to the baby nurses opinions?Do the baby nurses apprehend that they meet children that are maltreated in their work?How do the baby nurses interpret the mandatory reporting and what course of action do they use when they suspect child maltreatment?Nine baby nurses were interviewed. The material was analyzed with the help of a phenomenological method.The participators idea of the concept child maltreatment was focused on observing signs from the child and concrete actions from the parents. The outcome of this concept is that the participators categorization is neither or nor. The participators knew about the mandatory reporting and they did a further interpretation because they focused on the risk of the child.