The focus of this thesis is a specific part of Swedish library policy called library plans. A library plan is a political document created with the purpose of constituting a platform for co-operation between different library systems within a municipality, e.g. through determining and analysing the needs for library activities within municipalities in Sweden.This thesis´ aim is to investigate whether library plans are, or can be used as, a tool for change and thereby increase legitimacy for public libraries in Sweden.We have examined aspects of library plans using theories from change management to determine whether these plans include tools focusing on conditions in organisations that could result in an improved and stronger position in the society for public library. Through the use of theories from new institutionalism we opted for an understanding of the interaction between the libraries and the context in which they are part of.Upon examining 23 library plans, we discovered similarities as well as diversities among them. From our study we have drawn the conclusion that it is important to analyse the specific needs of each different municipality and to consider these individual conditions and needs when developing and composing the library plan.

The aim of this study is to find out in which way the education about climate in school is taught and how the students experience the world situation today. There are various theories about the greenhouse effect and its origin and these theories should be addressed to ensure that students get a broader understanding of how climate change occurs. This includes the natural phenomena and also the human impact on climate change. Students in school are a source of concern that only human are the cause of global warming, and know little or almost nothing about the natural phenomena of global warming.  I will mention what has emphasized in the national steering documents in the case of environmental education at school.I have used a qualitative method, where interviews and document analysis were used as techniques. The interviews took place with five students in ninth grade and with three science teachers in the same school..

Adolescents are coming to high school counselors to talk about sexuality for various reasons and the purpose of this study is to gain an enhanced understanding of how adolescents in high school talk regarding sexuality and LGBTQ. The empirical material is assembled on eight narrative interviews with high school counselors. The school counselors have through their experiences in meeting adolescents, submitted stories about the adolescents´ conversations regarding sexuality to us. The empirical data were analyzed by a standard critical perspective and with the help of heteronormativity it made norms about what is normal and abnormal visible and problematized. The result demonstrates that adolescents are influenced by norms of society, the media, family and friends.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine attitudes and standpoints amongst librarians at the Swedish public library towards literary awards and awarded literature. The questions posed in the study are: What attitudes are expressed amongst these librarians towards the Nobel Prize in literature, the August Prize and literary awards and awarded literature in general? What significance do the Nobel Prize in literature, the August Prize and other literary awards have concerning purchase and display at these public libraries? How is awarded literature perceived and how do they talk about it concerning quality and are questions of quality significant? Qualitative interviews with seven librarians at four different public libraries have been done. Theories regarding J?rgen Habermas the bourgeois public sphere and Pierre Bourdieu?s terms habitus, field and capital have been used as to explain the library as a public sphere.

The aim of this masters thesis is to explore a mediators practical procedure during booktalks. The main question is: Why do librarians have booktalks and what does it mean to have booktalks for children? In order to answer our main question, we have used these three questions: - Why do our interviewed librarians have booktalks? - How do our informants prepare their booktalks and what do their presentations look like? - Do our informants have any follow-ups of their booktalks and if so, how do they do that? To limit the thesis, we have concentrated our study to Swedish public libraries and to children in the elementary school. We have conducted qualitative interviews with three librarians who do booktalks for children as a part of their job. The thesis theoretical basis is Aidan Chambers theory about the Reading Circle and especially the parts enabling adult and selection.

This dissertation discusses head librarians in Swedish public libraries and the stress factors which affect them. The aim is to map out potential stress factors which head librarians come across in their day-to-day work. The purpose of the dissertation is to answer the following question: what stress factors affect library managers in Swedish public libraries? The dissertation was conducted through a literature study, informal interviews and a quantitative questionnaire. The results of the quantitative questionnaires show that the factor that produces the highest level of stress is having too many different tasks.

The aim of the paper is to examine how public libraries can develop their services for children with ethnic minority backgrounds as a user group. This is achieved through studying the conditions for library services provided for children aged 9-12 in this group by public libraries in suburbs densely populated with ethnic minorities. The paper uses both a literature review and empirical research on the community libraries in Rinkeby and Rosengård as well as the town library in Lund. Services potentially available to these groups are analysed and discussed in the later chapters. The overall conclusion is that those services provided for ethnic minority children are largely the same as those provided for in children library services in general.

AbstractHeadline To communicate the environment, ?Rarely a paper on the wall?, a study about communication strategies when it comes to internalize a policy in two secondary schools.Number of pages 42 (61 including enclosures)Author Fanny PerssonTutor Peder Hård af SegerstadCourse Media and communication CPeriod Autumn 2007/spring 2008University Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/aim The purpose of this work was to see what channels of communication are to prefer when working with secondary school pupils, more concrete when speaking about the environment, about the profile of the school and democracy among the pupils.Material/method I am going to visit two secondary schools in the middle of Sweden, one that has an environment certification, and the other one is a regular secondary school. To answer these questions I am going to interview totally four teachers, two from each school, and 12 pupils from each school divided into two groups per school.Main results One of the main results was that the pupils prefer to mix the tutoring for a better way to learn. Another result was that they see their teachers as paragons and that it is more important what the teachers do than what they say.Keywords Environment, Communication, Environment Certifikation, Secondary school, Karl Weick, Communication theory, Understanding, Internalize, Identification, Profile.

The purpose of this study was to understand school counselors´ and teachers´ perspectives on the prevention of bullying in relation to social capital. The study was based on a qualitative process with semi-structured interviews from three teachers and three school counselors from three different schools. The main question was to find out teachers and school counselors perspectives of bullying in relation to social capital. The analysis was based on a theory that focuses on social capital, where trust and confidence as well as universal and selective interventions are important. Today, bullying is considered a serious and significant problem in school.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how pupils with social dysfunction were defined and described and how the responsibility of the school concerning the needs of these pupils was apprehended. For this matter, in depth interviews with four headmasters and four teachers at three different schools were carried out.The possibilities to help pupils with social dysfunction were regarded as limited due to limited resources. The school can be described, as a huge refined apparatus of classification where some children very early are eliminated and there does not appear to exist any back up plan for these individuals. In this respect the function of the school is very similar to that of yesterdays school where the elimination process worked just as well, the denotations change but the problems remain the same.The material used in this study is too small to make general conclusions but the results give some indication of the problems of the interaction between the school and its staff and pupils with social dysfunction. We strongly believe that the results warrants further investigation as to in what way the school can improve in helping pupils with social dysfunction..

Bullying is today a major problem in schools worldwide. Far too many children are forced to undergo bullying day in and day out without anyone seeing or doing something. My purpose with this study is to find out how four F-6 schools in a municipality south of Stockholm are describes their work to get zero tolerance for bullying at their school.My questions are:How does the four F-6 schools' anti-bullying group in a municipality south of Stockholm describes their work to have zero tolerance for bullying?What do the employees in the school anti-bullying groups consider that bullying is?Why do the employees in the school anti-bullying groups think bullying occurs?Who do the employees in the school anti-bullying groups think are bullies or are being bullied?To get my results I have done four interviews with those in charge of the school's anti-bullying group. My theory is based on standards, what is acceptable behavior and normative theory, hypotheses, what is right and wrong as well as desirable or undesirable behavior.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the view on the personal encounter between staff and visitors in public libraries in order to detect possible differences between the two groups in order to see if the personal encounter as such could be used in order to market libraries. We believe that social competence must interact with the initial personal encounter in order for the visitor to experience the visit as positive. We have based the theoretical framework on Erving Goffman?s theory on social interaction, as well as on Christian Grönroos? theory on quality of service and marketing. We use the following questions: How do library staff view the personal encounter? How do library visitors view the personal encounter? How does the library staff?s treatment affect the visitor?s view of the library?Are there any differences in view between visitors and staff concerning the personal encounter? If so, what kind of differences are they? Using qualitative interviews, we have interviewed nine visitors and six staff members at two public libraries.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if elementary school teachers are a vulnerable professional group and if elementary school teachers should be mentally prepared for abusive treatment. Thus determine whether the reduced possibility for certain professionals such as police officers and order guards to obtain compensation for abusive treatment also shall apply for elementary school teachers.To reach that purpose, first the concept of abusive treatment and how compensation for abusive behavior becomes topical have to be straighten out. Then follows an analysis of both the lower possibility to obtain compensation for abusive treatment, but also how elementary teachers can be mentally prepared abusive treatment.It turns out in the conclusion that elementary school teachers are considered vulnerable in relation to the specifications of their work environment and because of that elementary school teachers must be deemed to have knowledge of that they may be subject to abusive treatment. Therefore I believe that elementary school teachers as certain professionals like police officers and order guards may not be granted compensation for every situation of abusive treatment, a lower limit must apply..

The aim of this essay is to analyze six picture books from a gender perspective. Research and investigations shows that children's literature has a big influence on how young children understand norms and values related to gender identity. It is written in the Swedish curriculum for the non-compulsory school system that the pre-school should counteract traditional gender roles.In this essay, six picture books with stories that take place in a pre-school or a pre-school class are being analyzed. Two of them, according to their market strategy, challenges established gender norms. I have investigated if there are any differences between how the educator as a character and the pre-school are portrayed where a girl contra a boy has the leading role.

The purpose of this essay was to examine pupils who leave the Swedish nine-year compulsory school system without reaching the requirements for the Swedish senior high school, and then to compare with those who reach the requirements. I used the following questions to help me reach this purpose:- Where in life are those pupils who reached the requirements for the Swedish senior high school?- Where in life are those pupils who did not reach the requirements for the Swedish senior high school?- What differences are noticeable between these two groups?The method that I used to examine these questions was to send out a questionnaire to the pupils. I also tried to make an explanation to the results with the help of Erwin Goffmanns theories.The result of this essay shows that there is not a big difference between the two groups. They both did equally well after they finished the Swedish nine-year compulsory school..