The bachelor thesis examines conceptions behind the Swedish public librarian?s opinions of the public library as a meeting place. The study uses the critical discourse analysis, developed by Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, to analyze a focus group interview. The discourse analysis identifies four themes in the empirical material: the imagined arena of the meeting place, the behaviour in the meeting place, the meeting place?s librarian and the polemic against the meeting place.

The aim of this master thesis?s is to examine what functions writing activities can have in the public library. Some public libraries offer their visitors writing activities, for example courses and camps. The public library is an institution with a particular identity, with special norms and properties which participants within the institution construct and reproduce. The main question of this thesis is to investigate how writing activities can be a part of the public library?s institutional identity and what functions writing activities in the public library can have.

Abstract We are two teacher students with an ethnic background and we thought that it could be, exciting to work with subjects, like a multicultural environment in schools and the challenges within this environment for students, but also teachers. In this study, we focus on how the teachers work with bilingual students in a multicultural school. We wanted to get an understanding of the subject and to be able do so, we conducted some qualitative interviews. These interviews went through with teachers currently working at the same Public school, teaching in classes from 1-5. Through this qualitative research, we were able to analyse, what the teachers attitude towards multilingualism is and what kind of methods they use organizing their teaching.

This study is about different teacher?s ´conception of remedial classes and its function in Today´s School. ?A school for everyone? the utopia that all schools and teachers aspire for. All pupils, regardless of ethnic background, class, and religious affiliation should be able to go to school without being segregated and are seen as different.

The purpose of this study is to increase understanding of how parents of children in need of special support have experienced their interaction with the pre-school. Our three main areas of interest were to investigate how several parents experienced their contact with the pre-school, if there were any experienced factors that had played a part in the contact with the pre-school and if we could conclude anything about how the curriculum had been followed in these cases, with assistance of the parents? experiences.Our study is qualitative and we chose to interview six parents. We both participated in all of the interviews. The theoretical base of this study is rooted in the phenomenological theory and we also used the framework factor theory to complement our analysis.One of our conclusions was that the parents expressed so many different experiences that we decide not to try compare them in general.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the relation between different kinds ofremedial teaching models, not specifically addressed to pupils with physicaldisabilities, in the Swedish school context, and to describe and analyze theobjectives related to each model. Research focus was held on professionaldescriptions of school related problems and arguments for different kind of models,but also on objectives formulated in Swedish school policy. As theoretical toolswere used discourse analysis and interpretive policy analysis. The concept ofalienation as it appears throughout Foucault?s work was also used to understand howdifferent knowledge fields as education, special education, psychology and medicinedivide themselves from each other.

This thesis is a cultural theoretical case study of the art project (O)önskad samhällsförbättring.Via an analysis of the project, that is based on theories of power, resistance and contemporaryurban development, it examines the construction of urban space, its impact on public art including the ability of art to initiate evolvement of the urban public space.The last decades art has plaid an important role in what is called the creative city; to become attractive nodal points of the global economy, larger cities increasingly invest in art,culture and creative industry. Simultaneously the urban public space is limited to activitiesand expressions of art that are presumed to create economic growth. This introduces animpression of what is allowed and what is not allowed, possible and not possible, wished andnot wished which, as a consequence, evolves the public space. The events during the artproject and the reactions that followed enlightened these limitations. This tells a story, not only about the structuring process of the local urban space, but also important changes that are created as a simultaneous effect at different levels in society, as well locally as globally.

The main purpose of this study was to examine how social work can be performed online, by a case study of Korrespondensgymnasiet that pursues distance education. The intention was to determine the possibilities and limits with the online communication between the school counsellor and the pupils. The study was based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with one school counsellor and five pupils and document analysis of three descriptions of the school counsellor?s profession. The theory that has been used in this study is the communication theory: Shannon and Weaver?s Model of Communication and non-verbal communication.

Eskilstuna Folkhögskola is located in Munktellstaden in Eskilstuna. The school has two separate buildings with entrances that are difficult to find. By having two separate buildings, and to be in an area where there are rules and guidelines for the area's environment, makes it difficult to guide visitors to the school premises.The purpose of my research was to examine how to guide visitors to the school, and how to increase understanding that the school's various buildings are connected.Through practices such as site analysis, interviews, I found that the guidelines are not adapted to the current situation that is established in the district.Through theory and empirical material I have produced a design proposal to facilitate Wayfinding to Eskilstuna Folkhögskola. This is presented as a landmark and a clarification of the schools entrances and signage..

This Master Thesis aims to study and discuss the occurence of three concepts in some influential cultural policy documents which includes the UNESCO public library manifesto, the Swedish libraries act, the Swedish cultural policy objectives, and a study from the mid nineties which deals with the cultural policy. The questions asked are: -Do the documents mention democracy? In what way? -Do the documents mention the public sphere? In what way? -Do the documents mention information? In what way? -How can we understand the content of the documents through relevant theories about democracy, the public sphere and information? Theories about the information society are used, as well as theories from Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Schiller and Robert Dahl. The way of method is document studies and abduktion, with influences from hermeneutic theory. The analysis deals with the documents through these concepts: democracy, the public sphere and information and puts forward the content, or lack of content, about democracy in the analysed material.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to explore the function of public libraries as arenas for young people's artistic creations. It examines how the public library makes activities based on independent creativity visible, and what activities of this sort imply to the public library. The thesis also relates this to the public library's task in society. The main object of examination is Demoteket, an on-going project in the south-eastern parts of Sweden. In this project Länsbibliotek Sydost co-operates with Reaktor Sydost, a centre of resource in the fields of young communication and filmmaking.

The public health care sector has come under increasing pressure to cut down costs, maximize productivity and satisfy patients' needs during the 1990s and onwards. As a way of "getting more for less" quality management has been introduced. Originating in the private manufacturing industry, quality management has a strong focus on productivity and efficiency, aspects which are measured in quantitative terms. However, there are strong concerns that quality management is a means of speeding up the marketization of public health care by introducing core values much different from the ethic and medical norms that traditionally underpin health care organizations.This essay focuses on how quality management has been introduced to, and transformed by, public health care. A theoretical framework based on new institutionalism is constructed, and translation theories are used as a way of illustrating how the medical institutional environment, in fact, changes the concept of quality management.

The purpose of this qualitative interview study was to examine which approach experienced pre-school teachers have on children that seek negative attention. The study contains five informants in a city in the middle of Sweden and they all have at least 10 years of experience after their diploma from a pre-school teachers? program. The questions I aimed to answer were the following: How did the pre-school teachers define the expression ?negative attention?? What approach did they have on children that seek negative attention? What effects do the childrens? seeking of negative attention generate on their self-esteem and sense of security? How possible do the pre-school teachers feel it is to achieve the goals of the pre-schools? curricula that every child should get their needs respected and met, when they work with children that seek negative attention? The results showed that the teachers think of them as resources in the group and that they need to think of the environment around these children both at home and at the pre-school to better meet their needs.

Different educational and professional backgrounds play important roles in how school librarians prioritize activities in the school library. Whether the school librarian has a background as a teacher or as a librarian, they influence and apprehend the activities of the school library differently. The aim of this thesis is to find out how the school librarian looks at his/her commission. What shifts in priorities can be recognized depending on whether the librarian has training as a teacher or a librarian. This thesis also analyzes how the two different professional backgrounds justify their priorities in the school library.

Do children, who are supporter of comradeship, think that working to prevent cyber bullying may be a task for them? This study describes, from a child?s perspective, how a supporter of comradeship can be supportive in the preventive work against cyber bullying. This study will also define the phenomena bulling and cyber bullying, the difference between them and where they can be seen. I will also describe the supporters of comradeship are elected, the information they get from school and how adults at school help them to plan their work. The schoolconsider, of course, the Swedish school law towards (against) bulling and insulting behavior and the school is also visited by inspectors from the Swedish National Agency for Education.