The representative democracy has become weakened during the last decades. At the same time the United Nations declared at the Rio de Janeiro meeting in 1992 that environmental problems can best be solved by involvement of all concerned citizens in decision-making. The main purpose of this study has been to examine if citizens panels is a possible way to involve citizens in environmental decision-making and what the outcomes can be. Furthermore the study has investigated what the participation has contributed to environmental politics and how representative the results have been. This has been carried out by investigating the Piteåpanel in the municipality of Piteå by conducting interviews.The result of the study shows that the involvement of the citizens in the decision-making influenced the environmental politics of the municipality.

The aim of this Master´s thesis is to examine which type of regime the state Iran is. There has been much research on this issue and the discussion is not over yet. I have departed from three theoretical perspectives in order to understand which type of regime the Middle Eastern nation is: theocracy, democracy and hybrid regime. The theocratic regimetype is composed by David L. Websters archeological theory about governments ruled by God.

This thesis is an attempt to shed light on how the authors of the Swedish Government Official Report, SoU 1999:83, speak about how the globalization affects democracy. The method used is critical discourse analysis and ideological analysis, with the main emphasis on the former. The results of the analysis are then interpreted with central parts of Jürgen Habermas? The theory of communicative action. One of the main conclusions is that an absolute majority of the authors, talk about how the globalization affects democracy in terms of the economic market and the European union.

This essay concerns the issue of democracy and judicial review. The main focus is on the justification of both a positive and a negative attitude towards judicial review, and the values these justifications are based on. The analysis is made by textual analysis of four authors with different opinions of the subject matter: Robert Dahl and Jeremy Waldron who has a negative attitude towards judicial review, and Erwin Chemerinsky and Ronald Dworkin who are positive about it. In the analysis an analytic frame is used which consists of different dimensions and aspects of the problem of democracy and judicial review. The study shows that there are important differences in democratic values between a positive and a negative justification of judicial review.

In an effort to strengthen democracy in the union, the EU in 2005 took a new approach to communications policy to reach out to the citizens. The strategic document "Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate" was accompanied by two other documents, and the three of them were the core of this policy. Both democracy and communications work means at EU level a higher complexity than in the nation-state arena. Objective of this study is to examine how the implementation of Plan D has turned out in a democracy renewal perspective. To achieve that answers are sought to questions concerning the goals of Plan D, how they are still present today, what happened in practice regarding the efforts that are highlighted, and how the substance of the activities can be judged from a democratic theory perspective.

Today, digital technologies (DT) can be said to play an important role in the Swedish school system. The goal of this essay was to describe DT use by school leaders, in relation to their views on schools? goals and visions, and teachers? and students? use of DTs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five school leaders of secondary schools in Umeå municipality, Sweden. The results show that school leaders? use of DTs center on three key tasks: communication, information and administration.

The purpose of this study was to examine how Swedish high school students view school staff members, in general, but in particular school counselors. The research questions focused on getting the students descriptions of the staff members roles and functions within the school. The study was conducted using focus group interviews. The answers were divided into themes and then analyzed using role theory and previous research. The results showed that the students relationships with family, friends and previous knowledge about the staff members in school, affects their willingness to seek the support of school staff members.

The purpose of my essay has been to illustrate any possible differences between pre-school teachers? and parents' views on the mission of the pre-school put in relation to the pre-school curriculum. In my study I have taken a starting point in the following questions:How do pre-school teachers understand the mission of the pre-school?Do pre-school teachers recognize the term baby-sitting from their profession?How do pre-school teachers perceive the parents' view on the mission of the pre-school?How concerned are the parents according to the pre-school teachers about the pedagogical activities of the pre-school?What do the pre-school teachers do to inform the parents about the pre-school curriculum and how aware do they think that the parents are of the curriculum?What are the plans of the pre-schools to fulfill the new part of the revised curriculum that comes into effect July 1 2011?I chose to utilize the qualitative method with the hermeneutics as a theoretical framework in my study and through interviews study my questions. The interviews were made with four pre-school teachers from different pre-schools in the south of Stockholm.

This is an interview- and literature study that discusses teaching about the Second World War and the Holocaust, while working with the basic values in grade 7-9.The purpose with this examination is to see how teachers of history in grade 7-9 choose to teach about the Second World War and the Holocaust, how they work to integrate the basic values in their education and whether the teachers? education can be sustained by the Swedish school curricula.In this study I?ve been doing qualitative interviews with five teachers of history in grade 7-9 from different schools. I have also perused the Swedish school curricula and read some literature and studies about different ways of dealing with the subject: the Holocaust.According to the central parts of the Swedish curricula, LGR 2011, the fields about the Holocaust and the 20.century World Wars are to be studied during grade 7-9. All my respondents in the study teach about this think that the most important thing with this complex time in history, is to give the students a deeper understanding for the time leading up to the beginning of the  Second World War in 1939, and why the Holocaust actually took place.Regarding the work with the basic values, all the five respondents agree on the fact that, this subject shall permeate the entire work at school, all the time, every day, but that it?s absolutely essential while studying the Holocaust.

The purpose of this essay is to illustrate the importance of the school library in a selected junior high school. My investigation is based on both theoretical and empirical studies. The aim of the theoretical part is to create a platform and refer to thoughts, roles and laws concerning the activity of the school library. The empirical investigation consists of two parts: questionnaires among students and teachers, plus interviews with students, teachers, headmaster, school librarian and the management of education. Everybody shows a positive attitude towards the school library and considers it important for the students exams.

International research has shown that through the involvement of the school library and the school librarian in the daily school work with the pupils, the pupil´s learning can be increased and reading comprehensions significantly improved.One purpose of this master`s thesis is to study the school librarian as a brand, representing the school library as well as the school librarian and whether there is a correlation between different comprehensions of the professional role of the school librarian. This is done by examining whether there is a difference between a specific librarian´s own perception of their professional role, compared to the image of the school librarian among teachers and principals working in the same school district and by comparing the profile the school librarian expresses with the image that is conveyed through communications via webpage, written and oral information given on services and competences provided by the school librarian and work carried out by her.A difference of comprehension of the school librarian´s competence and work, could be part of an explanation as to why the correlation between the involvement of school librarians in the school work and the improved learning achievements of the pupils has not resulted in the expected measures, regardless of the investments in school librarians and school libraries. The school librarians´ school identity could be difficult to establish. Whether or not the profiles and images of the professional role are consistent with each other is a much more manageable purpose which could go a long way of explaining the circumstances of the school libraries.That is the reason why we have examined whether the comprehension the school librarians have of themselves corresponds with the idea/ conception/ image conveyed to their surroundings, and with the idea/conception/image encompassed by people in their immediate surroundings..

What role should science play in democracy? Political scientists often assume that it is possible to demarcate between ?instrumental? and ?moral? knowledge, and argue that citizens and/or politicians should use their moral knowledge to agree upon political goals and then apply the instrumental knowledge of scientists to achieve them. This straightforward view is challenged by writers in science studies, who identify three major problems in the use of science in democracy: uncertainty, risk and hidden values. They suggest that these problems could be solved through citizen participation.In this essay I perform an analysis of the internal logic of their suggestion. Is it likely that citizen participation enhances the democratic decision making process so as to reduce the problems? The internal analysis shows that it is rational to advocate citizen participation by reasons of legitimacy.

Local politicians are key actors in the democratic system and their ideas concerning democracy plays a central role in local democratic politics. The study's point of departure is the notion that local politicians are dependent of coherence between practice and theory concerning democracy and in the study of their ideas we acquire knowledge about the democratic practice.This study examines the local politicians? view of Swedish democracy and explores the logic of the discourse that makes statements concerning democracy possible. Twenty local politicians have been interviewed and from the material a discourse have been established through the use of formulation of problems and cause, nodal points and chains of analogy which is compared with democratic ideals.The study comes to the conclusion that a hegemonic discourse exists, in which central nodal points are representative and listening. The idea of the representative system is hegemonic and is based in the liberal democratic ideal although the view of the citizens rather can be traced to the radical, communitarian and deliberative ideal.

AbstractTheoryWhich education model has the ultimate learning potential? According to Olga Dysthe a varied education predominated by a dialogical nature is the best way of teaching.PurposeMy main purpose in this essay has been to investigate three different ways of education models and decide, on the basis of Dysthes? model, whether they can be classified as a monological or a dialogical model.I have also investigated if the thesis of Dysthes, ?The teachers view of knowledge determines the choice of teaching method?, is anchored in the reality.Furthermore, I have surveyed how the teachers educate concerning democracy. For example, on the basis of certain rules, are all sudents able to make the selves heard in a classroom that is characterized as dialogical? In such a classroom the teacher works whith activities to involve everyone and according to Dysthe, democracy is an attitude rather than a political system. Democracy is necessary in a classroom that is classified as dialogical.ResultThe essay is exclusively qualitative and builds upon interviews with three teachers on different upper secondary social schools witin the Gothenburg area.My results indicate that the teathers way of educating totaly differs from each others and that the thesis of Dysthe can be applied on only two out of three cases.

The curriculum of the Swedish school system explains how the transitions between the preschool class and the pre-school should be. The co-operation between the organisations should aim for a long term perspective with the students learning process in mind (Lgr11).The pre-school has almost the same aim in their curriculum, as the curriculum of the Swedish school system.The aim with my study is to examine how the teachers from the different organizations relate to knowledge and how they look at the students social interactions. Also how the transition between the pre-school and the pre-school class is viewed from their point of view. How do the teachers from the different organisations comprehend knowledge?How do the teachers from the different organisations comprehend the social abilities?How do the teachers from the different organisations work and interact in terms of the transition between the pre-school and the pre-school class?The study that has been made is about the transitions between the pre-school and the pre-school class. It´s been investigated by doing interviews with teachers from both the pre-school and the pre-school class.