This thesis studies how the Swedish government articulates social exclusion within the spring budget of 2007. Through a discourse theoretical approach, inspired by Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the empirical findings are reconstructed through the nodal point of labour and two chains of equivalence, based upon the duality between employment and unemployment. By viewing social exclusion as a phenomenon concerning discourse, identity and politics, this duality forms the basis of a deconstructive and hegemonic analysis.I argue that the term social exclusion is a powerful and flexible political concept in that it obscures ideological assumptions and objectives as well as draws attention away from alternative social concepts. Throughout the thesis social exclusion is stressed as a social category constituting the relation between individual and society. Hence I argue that it is of vital importance that the values underlying its usage are made explicit and that social exclusion as a floating signifier is made an object of academic analysis..

This is a study of democracy on the local level. It?s a comparison between the municipalities of Mo?rbyla?nga and Mo?nstera?s in the region of Kalmar in Sweden based on most similar design. The question is if the structure of the political organisation affects the quality of democracy, with focus on the reorganisaton in Mo?rbyla?nga and the quality of the political process.

The purpose of the present paper is to examine the political debate on the education of newly arrived immigrant pupils at secondary school age. The following issues are under scrutiny:What are the goals, expressed by politicians during the examined periods, for the education of newly arrived pupils?What ideas about education and what educational ideals can be observed in the political debate on the education of newly arrived pupils?Has there been any change, during the examined period, in the policy debate on the education of newly arrived pupils?The research material consists of reports and statements of the Education Committee, as well as a number of parliamentary protocols. Two five-year periods, 1971-1975 and 2006-2010, are studied and compared. All in all, the material consists of 23 documents issued during these periods.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine how daily encounters between the Danish public libraries and the library-users called ethnic minorities are described within the public library field. Danish public libraries have been assigned to play a larger role in societys strive towards integration of immigrants and refugees. Within Danish politics I find an emphasis on the importance of maintaining Danish culture, but it is rarely expressed if ethnic minorities are, can or should be a part of it. Theoretical and methodological starting points are hermeneutics and text-analysis. My theoretical framework is research about international migration and ethnic relations IMER.

Title: What is important knowledge in social studies- An analyse of opinions among teachers in social studiesThe aim of this paper is to increase the awareness about how teachers in Social studies think about goals and substance in the subject. I also want to get a picture about what kinds of problems teacher?s experiences when teaching Social studies. My expectations told me that Social studies are complex to teach, because it derives from several university disciplines such as Political science, Economics, Sociology, Law and Geography, which I believe makes the subject harder to define and what to give priority to. Finally, I want to increase the awareness, if it seems to be any fundamental essence in Social studies as a subject.To achieve my goals with this paper I have studied relevant literature about Social studies.

Christianity has for a long time played a significant role in the Swedish school system, which can be seen in the syllabus of the course religion in 2011 where Christianity got a special status and the Christian alignments were explicit named. The aim of this essay was to see whether, and if so how, Christianity and its three alignments ? Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism ? had developed a greater impact in religion textbooks for grades 7?9 adapted to Lgr 11 compared to Lpo 94 and partly to see if there had been any changes and to what extent. The main question concerned whether Christianity had a greater impact in religion textbooks adapted to Lgr 11 than Lpo 94 and how Christianity could be seen as culture-religion. The sub-questions concerned whether there was any differences in what Christianity is and to what extent Christianity were represented in religion textbooks, but also if any difference to what range the three alignments where represented. The study consisted of six religion textbooks for grades 7?9, where three were adapted to Lpo 94 and three to Lgr 11.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain the European Union was challenged partly by an institutionalized organization of the union, as well as by a socio-psychology awareness concerning the meaning of the European Union. The increase in European integration has generated a political collaboration where national understandings in identities are constantly being exposed for reconstruction. This results in a collective European identity where states are united in diversity.National identities are created when boundaries are set up in a relation to other states. In these identity constructions there are thoughts and questions raised such as who we are and who we are not. Ukraine and the European Union has, during a long time, had diversified preconceptions concerning who has been the others.

The overall purpose of this essay is to study in which degree the democratic model that is called participant democracy works in the Swedish municipalities. To achieve what I set out to do I will focus on a central political area in which the Swedish municipalities has sovereignty versus the state, in other words in an area where they rule themselves. That political area will then represent how well the participant democracy works in the Swedish municipalities. The research questions then becomes:Does the participant democracy at Swedish Municipality level work in a satisfying way?Does the participant democracy in a large Swedish Municipality in a central political area work?Does the participant democracy in a small Swedish Municipality in a central political area work?Are there similarities and differences between the municipalities?If so, how can that be explained?To answer these questions I will study documents regarding the planning and building area.

The international requirement of Swedish healthcare today is high and due to a good reputation and a long history of reliable methods through extended experience. For those Swedish companies within this business, the process of internationalization is often a attractive option.This study aims to describe, analyze and translate how minor Swedish companies within the care keeping section establish their business on the international market.The study is based upon a qualitative approach and is an empirical study carried out through semi-structured interviews.The result presented in the study shows that internationalization of companies within this business does often require a lot of time and money, is based upon establishments through networks and were learning-by-doing often is used as a strategic approach for the companies penetrating a new market.The study also accounts for major entry barriers, which declares for being to some part of political nature, but mostly of cultural nature.Differences in language and culture are shown in the study to be a major entry barrier and host-countries different cultural levels are very conclusive for the success of internationalization. .

To create fair conditions between majority and minority in Sweden is a challeging project. Male immigrants usually do not get same opportunities for a success identity structure and integration into Swedish society as women and children. The aim of this thesis is therefore to critically examine and analyse the processes regarding identity structure and integration for male immigrants with a specific focus on Helsingborg. The object of this study is Mansgrupp, a project which helps men to build up a secure ground for identity structure and which further helps them to integrate into the society. To be able to reach the results I have made a literature study as well as a minor field study in Helsingborg, where I conducted interviews with men from the above mentioned project.

In the context of world globalization, Sweden has today become a multicultural society, where many different cultures, religions, values and approaches are trying to co-exist. When the Swedish government's integration policy was put into effect, one sought to open the way for a more peaceful coexistence between majority and minority people. The intention was that everyone, through mutual interaction, would learn to come together and learn to respect each other's differences. It was suggested that an intercultural approach should permeate all education, including preschool activity. There are particular guidelines for a culture and tradition promotion work within the preschool in the new revised curriculum (Lpfö 98, rev.

This essay presents an alternative approach to the predominant democratic analysis of the European Monetary Union. As the Treaties stipulate the political conduct within Monetary Union and put certain restrictions on the European politicians they are to some extent constitutional in their character. Essential for constitutional theory is the concept of precommitment; according to which a decision is made in t1 purposing to obstruct certain actions in t2. In light of this the aim of this essay is to investigate whether or not delegating monetary responsibility to the ECB can be seen as an example of constitutional precommitment and if so, if this constitutional perspective can add something to the predominant democratic analysis of the EMU. According to the author the EMU is by and large a form of precommitment as the leading politicians in Europe figuratively have tied their hands from intervening in the common monetary policy.

The association between social parameters (i.e. socio-economy and level of education) and voting behaviour has been reviewed and analysed based on data from municipal council elections in Stockholm and Gothenburg in 2002. Some social scientists argue that the class voting is in decline and that new social cleavages have emerged. However, by using regression analysis techniques, this study implies a strong dependence of voting behaviour on social parameters, such as socio-economic status (SES) and level of education. Socio-economy appears to be a dominant predictor in the analysis.

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.

The aim of this essay is to show if and how group identities are being constructed in maindocuments from three political parties in the Swedish parliament, focusing on class, genderand ethnic identities. The three parties who?s documents are being analyzed are theModerate Party, the Sweden Democrats and the Left Party. The conclusion of the essay isthat the Moderate Party is so focused on the individual that they are not promoting groupidentity based on class, gender or ethnicity. The Sweden Democrats are mostly discussing,and therefore creating a discourse of, cultural identity, where Swedish, Nordic, Europeanand Western culture are being created as the ?us?, and others are being created as ?them?.They are also promoting difference between men and women, therefore dividing the sexesin groups.