The purpose of this paper was to discuss stigma and stigmatisation in relation to social policy and social work. By discussing welfare systems in social policy I wanted to see if there could be any connection between social policy and stigma. I used case studies of hearing impaired adults to give examples of how the stigma processes work. By connecting the stigma and the social policy theories with the case studies I wanted to see how the social policy could affect the stigma processes or vice versa.In the paper the concept of stigma has been described and discussed, foremost using the theories of Erving Goffman. I have also discussed the welfare system and the connection between residual systems and stigma.

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..

En betydande del av Sveriges nationella ungdomspolitik syftar till att ge ungdomar större inflytande över samhällsutvecklingen. De målformuleringar som staten skapat genom bland annat regeringens liggande ungdomspolitiska proposition, har intresserat oss. Denna uppsats behandlar de normer som staten, genom olika dokument och skrifter, konstruerar för hur ungdomars politiska engagemang bör organiseras och tas till vara.Med hjälp av kvalitativ textanalys har vi sökt identifiera dessa normer i vårt utvalda material, för att sedan på en hög abstraktionsnivå diskutera vad dessa kan få för effekter för det demokratiska styrelsesättet. Vår slutsats är att det saknas en medvetenhet om de vidare implikationer som den nationella ungdomspolitiken får, och vi efterlyser därmed en bredare diskussion i ämnet..

During the last decades the Swedish local party systems have gone through some considerable changes. The number of parties present in local party systems have increased and in some cases even doubled. This makes coalition building between parties complex and parties will be forced to rethink their coalition strategies and adjust to the new circumstances. Theoretically, coalition building has often been considered and applied to national data and there have been just a few attempts to develop and theoretically explain coalitions on a local level. Thus the aim of this paper is to use different theoretical approaches to local data to test the significance of traditional coalition theories.

Kina är idag en av världens största handelsnationer. Sedan ordförande Maos död 1976 har landet öppnats upp för relationer med västvärlden. Handelsmässigt sett har Kina nått en större frihet. Syftet med denna fallstudie är att kartlägga graden av politisk liberalisering i Kina, med grundantagandet att liberalisering utgör vägen mot målet ? demokrati.

Purpose: The purpose of the essay is; to explain and clarify how the company is acting to lead members in social media to achieve valuable external communication. The authors believe that it is important to act with credibility and quality in social media, to accomplish long lasting relationships. When employees communicate with consumers their conduct is relevant to the company's credibility.Methodology: An inductive approach has been used for the empirical data collection since the authors have been studying the reality without existing theories. A qualitative research method has been used for collecting the empirical material. Primary data was collected from telephone interviews with seven companies, active in social media.Conclusions: The study shows that the power of employees? can be used when designing strategies for social media.

Aid effectiveness is a reoccuring theme in the social sciences. Maybe rightfully so, as development is slow in many parts of the developing world. Core literature on the matter seems to suggest that aid effectiveness is contingent on recipients? level of corruption. Assuming this to be true, I examine the EU?s disbursements of Official Development Assistance over the past decade by running regressions: is there a relationship between the level of aid received, and a country?s level of corruption? As the EU is one of the largest donors of foreign aid globally, and has the power to shape the global foreign aid agenda, this question puts to the test whether the EU is leading the way, or rather is an obstacle in front.

Vår uppsats diskuterar hur skolan och föreningar bidrar med en demokratisk fostran av barn och ungdomar. Vi driver tesen att föreningar kan komplettera skolan i att förmedla demokratiska ideal. Med demokratiska ideal menar vi värnandet om alla människors lika värde och förmågan att samarbeta med andra i en demokratisk anda. Vi har utgått från Dahl's institutionella demokratikriterier, den deliberativa demokratiskolan och det sociala kapitalet.Vi har använt oss av tidigare empirisk forskning kring hur skolan respektive föreningar förvaltar den teori vi utgått från. Vi har sedan jämfört resultaten för att se vari olikheterna ligger och om föreningar kompletterar skolan.Resultatet vi fått fram är en verifiering av vår hypotes.

Wind power is becoming an increasingly important source of energy. There are several national and international goals set to increase to amount of renewable energy, and in order to meet these goals, the wind power production plays an important part and the establishment of new wind power farms are required. The Swedish national project Riksintresse Vindbruk has appointed areas in Sweden suitable for wind power, mainly when looking at the physical wind conditions of the area. In this study, I aim to define suitable areas for wind power establishment in Norrbottens län. In order to reach this goal, a critical regional method was developed and completed using GIS.

Genom en textanalys av författaren Maja Lundgrens bok Myggor och Tigrar undersöker uppsatsen skönlitterära texters möjlighet att förändra kvinnors positioner och potentialer. I den teoretiska bakgrunden redogörs för såväl historisk som nutida självbiografiforskning med fokus på diskussioner kring sanningsanspråk, textens konstituerande karaktär och specifikt feministisk forskning på området. Med betoning på hur förtryck kan beskrivas på alternativa och komplexa sätt för att i förlängningen skapa nya förståelser för kvinnliga subjektspositioner, undersöks Lundgrens försök att skildra subtila maktutövanden..

The purpose of this essay was to study how surroundings form young peoples gender and where gender patterns are maintained. This was done by interviewing 12 students from two advanced classes at a comprehensive school in a small town in the southern parts of Sweden. The students where divided into four groups. Two groups with three boys in each, and two groups with three girls in each. We used R.W.

Vi gör i vår uppsats en samläsning mellan kritisk diskursanalys och diskursteori för att undersöka hur medvetenheten om diskriminering och stigmatisering av riskgrupper artikuleras i den svenska hiv/aids diskursen. Genom att utgå från ett kritiskt socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv, frågar vi oss hur denna medvetenhet konstitueras av intersektionen mellan ?ras? /etnicitet, kön, klass och sexualitet. Vi är intresserade av att söka förändring i diskursen och avgränsar oss därför genom att närläsa två offentliga dokument, AIDS-delegationens informationsbroschyr från 1986 och en SOU-rapport från 2004. Vi kommer i vår studie fram till att medvetenhet artikuleras genom ett konstruerande av riskgrupper, där genus och sexualitet inledningsvis står i fokus, men som senare lämnar en allt större betydelse för kategorin ?ras? /etnicitet i diskursen.

A foundation of our welfare state is that we have a social safety net. This safety net is designed to pick up individuals who are in need of help and support to manage their way of life. This essay regards people who need help with care or people who need help with an addiction. This essay is a qualitative text analysis, which aims to see whether, and if so how, help-seekers are constructed in 40 social service documents within a municipality in central Sweden. We have endeavored to illustrate the power that the written word possesses and which categories of people are constructed depending on the language and content of the social documents.

No abstract.

This thesis examines the relationship between recognition of prior learning and the aim to increase social and ethnical diversity in higher education. Recognition of prior learning is a result of educational politics aiming to broaden social and ethnical recruitment to higher education. By examining if recognition of prior learning rather can, and shall, be seen as part of what Pierre Bourdieu calls educational social reproduction I try to question whether it fulfils education policy goals or not. My results show that persons responsible for recognition of prior learning rather recognise knowledge from prior educational institutions than knowledge gained outside the educational system. Considering this, recognition of prior learning does not quite live up to the aims.