Participation is central to the concept of democracy. The role of the civic Participation varies with different types of democracy, but a fundamental requirement is that the Participation is free and equal. In spite of this, there are significant differences between possibilities to democratic Participation in Sweden today.This essay seeks to understand how disability, historically and still today, is constructed as a social deviation from normality, and is constructed to Otherness.One way to regard freedom and equality is to examine the personal autonomy, the legth to wich a person decides her/his roles and activities in abcence of external limitations. Personal autonomy is theoretically central in deliberative and strong democracy, but should reasonobly be a demand for the fundamental definition of democracy.The explanation to why the lack of personal autonomy is accepted, is that the construction of Otherness results in that the persons are categorized and are given simplified characteristics, and are thereby not accepted as equivalent people.In the inteviews conducted, seven politicians contribute both whiteness, pathological discourses regarding disability and ideas of normality through discussing democracy, Participation and disability. Simultaniously, they express interest and an awareness on the majority's power and symbolic violence on the minority..

Studies have shown that user Participation is a good method when improving or developing a product. The method gives a company insight in what the customer wants and needs. It has also been shown that user Participation benefits all parts included. For example, it creates a greater relationship with customers than most other methods do. Webportals is one of the most interactive systems online and it gives companies a unique chance to improve and maintain their relationship with customers.

The purpose of this study is to describe and understand how children?s Participation and influence is described in the curriculum of preschool. The purpose includes how educators perceive, working with and what opportunities and challenges they believe that there is in the process of Participation and influence. The methods I used were qualitative text analysis and e-mail interviews. I studied text in the curriculum and interviewed four educators to find out their views on children's Participation and influence.

The main purpose of this essay was to study the program "Nationellt stöd för kunskapsutveckling inom socialtjänsten" ("National support for knowledge development within the social services") from the National Board of Health and Welfare on the basis of how such a development, as represented by the program, could affect clients' possibilities to Participation and influence within the social services.To respond to the purpose I used the following questions at issue:* How is client Participation and client influence defined in the program?* What arguments for and/or against client Participation and client influence are stated?* Which patterns and similarities/differences are possible to discern between the municipalities and universities that participated in the program when it comes to client Participation and client influence?The study was conducted as a document analysis. I studied documents from the program both on a national and a local level. The essay uses empowerment theories and theories concerning client Participation and client influence. The main conclusions were that on the national level the authors of the documents spoke with caution about their view on client Participation and client influence and expressed that it had to be balanced against the rights of the citizens and the social workers for example.

This study aims to explore how a gardening project with elderly living in Djuröhemmet, a nursing home outside Stockholm, affected them regarding psychological well-being and their experience of Participation during the planning and construction of the memory garden. The gardening project is new in its kind by allowing the residents to influence the design of the garden by sharing the project leader their gardening memories from previous parts of their life and by wishing for specific plants and items.  The method being used was qualitative interviews where we interviewed seven people living in Djuröhemmet who participated in all or parts of the project. The theoretical framework is Molins (2004) definition of Participation, but also theories of meaningfulness, social needs and gerotranscendence were applied. The results indicate that the participants did not realize that their involvement during the planning helped developed the garden.

Assessment of the level of the pupils´ knowledge and understanding are important parts of teaching. There are diverse ways to do this and many different tools to use.The purpose of this study is to explore, through qualitative interviews, how five teachers work with assessment. The focus lies on both how they work with assessment in general and how they use the assessment tools called »LUS» and »Nya språket lyfter!». The pupils´ Participation in their own education is an important part of the Swedish curriculum, which is why the study also focuses on how the informants work to enable the pupils´ Participation in the assessment and in their education.The informants all think that both assessment and the pupils´ Participation in the assessment are important, since teaching is easier when the pupils are aware of what they need to know and learn. Many of the informants express that time is an issue when it comes to making the assessment trustworthy.

This thesis is about the effect of political efficacy on societal Participation among youths aged 15 to 29. It takes a starting point in the gloomy view of the decline of political Participation among citizens in the western world, especially pointing out youths as a threat to democracy. This is a broad subject to take on so my aim becomes a bit more specific. The aim of the thesis is therefore to investigate if belief in ones own capacity and in the responsiveness of the political system affects the actual Participation among youths in Europe, independent of a set of alternative predictors. Moreover the thesis is divided into two sub-investigations, one qualitative and one quantitative.

Schools inspections investigation has shown that most pedagogues are experiencing significant challenges to stimulate students and to invite students to participate and to influence the teaching structure and content. This study is based in the school inspections school questionnaire from 2013 which shows that Vallentuna high school results in two categories stimulation as well as Participation and influence gets a low index value compared to all participating school units. Previous research has shown that the field studies creates greater amount of stimulation, increases students? Participation and provide experience of a bigger influence. Careful preparations are also important and the right form of field studies.

The aim of this study was to, through a qualitative method, investigate students? Participation in a specific library blog to find out what motivate them to create and share digital book recommendations through videos. It also intended to describe the students? own views of their Participation.We conducted interviews with eight students in the ages 12 and 13, who all had similar experiences regarding the blog creation but diverse attitudes concerning the blog production and intentions to participate.The results showed that the strongest motivating forces behind the students' Participation in the blog creation was that they enjoyed the making of the videos and also because they wanted to inspire others to read more and create resembling blogs..

Several studies show that the clinical reality in psychiatric care does not correspond to the demand of consumer Participation from a variety of policy documents that has been produced recently. Studies also show that there is a lot to do in improving, patients with sever mental illness, becoming more involved in their own care. The nurse has a central role in this work. The Norwegian nursing theorist Jan-Ka?re Hummelvolls holistic, existentialistic model for psychiatric nursing were used as theoretical ground.The aim of this study was to examine how nurses in psychiatric outpatient units, caring for patients with psychotic disorders, experiences consumer Participation.Qualitative phenomenological method was used.

This study is about how the dialog can help students with special needs to feel Participation and inclusion in the class and the teaching. My purpose with this study was to look for how the students with special needs interact with other students and teachers through the dialogue. I also wanted to know if there is any positive and negative effects to teaching students with special need in the classroom compared with the teaching at the special teacher.I have taking purpose of the sociocultural theory in my study because it says that children learn together when they communicate with each other. The theory central words are dialog and scaffolding in the zone of proximal development. I also describe central words like Participation, inclusion and students with special needs in the special teaching.I have investigated in four interviews, two of them were with a teacher and a special aids teacher, and two of them were students with special needs.

The ambition to involve younger people in future planning processes in order to get full Participation of all groups in the society requires a deep and well-planned dialogue. Although, Participation not always means inclusion. The purpose of this study was to analyze how the younger generation in the society is included in the future work. This is based on a case study of the developmental work in the municipality of Skellefteå.Questions that were answered were how the municipality has made the Participation possible? To what extent has the younger generation been involved? How did this group experience their Participation? The methodology consisted of mixed methods that include observations, surveys to the session leaders and to the participants in the dialogue and three interviews with two participants and one municipal civil servant.The result showed that the open information didn´t reach the younger generation to the open dialogues although the dialogue design gave good conditions for Participation.

According to the theory of elitist democracy civic political Participation should be reduced to Participation in the democratic elections. This essay examines whether a high rate of institutionalized political Participation beyond the elections leads to: (a) that those who are included gets a more favourable treatment at the expense of the common interest, in other words that their self interest threatens the political equality, (b) reduced freedom of action for the politicians and the headmasters, (c) the emergence of vague conditions of responsibility. These hypotheses are examined in an empirical study of user-boards at four schools on three locations in southern Sweden. In these user-boards the parents are in majority and have the right of decision, which has been delegated to them from the local government and the headmaster. The main conclusion is that, based on this empirical investigation, there is no support in any of the hypotheses.

Sweden is in the initial phase of forming a national forest programme (nfp). The establishment of an nfp has been evoked by international policy developments and a national debate questioning Swedish forestry and forest policy. National forest programmes are participatory processes for the development and implementation of forest-related policies and international commitments. Hence, the aim of this master thesis is to assess the stakeholders? acceptance of Participation and integration of international issues within the Swedish national forest programme.

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the structured and evidence-based assessment tool/method The Brief Child and Family Phone Interview (BCFPI) trough a social psychology perspective of conversation. The aim was especially to seek an understanding of the method considering aspects of children?s Participation. The research question was: how do the method users apprehend the advantages and the limitations of the BCFPI method considering aspects of children?s Participation.