The aim of the study is to elucidate and analyze newcomer students´ experiences of the Language Introduction Program, in more detail, how the students describe their time at the program and how experiences could differ between girls and boys. Finally, the study examines how the program, according to the students, can be significant for their future. The analysis of the students´ dictums is based on the perspective of intercultural education. To answer the study´s aim and research questions, the investigation consists of eight semi-structured interviews with students who are studying at the Language Introduction Program at an upper secondary school in Uppsala.The results show that the main advantages with studying at the Language Introduction Program are, according to the students, that they learn the Swedish language and that they meet students with several cultural backgrounds. The main disadvantages that were noted were that the Language Introduction Program takes a long time to finish, and furthermore, the contact with the students at the other programs at the school is not enough.

The purpose of this study was to look at the experiences of midwives in maternalhealth care encounters with non-european-born women and men, and to determine ifmidwives deem any special competence necessary to handle these encounters well.We gathered information by means of qualitative interviews and semi structuredquestions with eight midwives all of whom matched the inclusion criterias and gavetheir personal consent. Midwives from four district health care centers in Uppsalawere included. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed by means of qualitativecontent analysis.The results reveal the experiences from encounters with non-european patients to betwofold. On one hand the encounter is a positive, exiting experience with anopportunity to learn more about a foreign culture and exchange experiences. On theother hand complications can occur as patients may have unexpected expectationsregarding the health care, have great difficulties with the language or haveexperienced traumatizing incidents, all on top of coming to Sweden alone withoutrelatives.In the encounter with non-european-born patients the midwives consider it importantto have special competence in form of knowledge of other cultures and religions asthis provides a greater understanding of the reasoning behind the patients? decisions.Cultural competence is also important as it helps avoid inadvertently insulting thepatient during the encounter.The special competence held by the midwives has been attained from their basic andspecialist education as well as from self acquired experiences and interests.

As social interactions migrate to the ubiquitous Internet we are facing a change in theway we relate to each other, which presents interesting new opportunities foranonymity to create identities. An aspect of this radically evolving technology thatexhibits strong possibilities for altering or producing identities is the rapidly growingonline game genre MMOG (Massive Multiplayer Online Game) which isentertainment that millions of people all over the globe engage in daily. Thisrelatively new platform for socialising has become of cultural and social significance,which is why it calls for examination and research. Thus, the main research questionsasked in this thesis are as following: How does players of MMOGs utilise the nighcomplete anonymity to present or modify their identities online? In which ways areMMOGs used as a platform for socialising and development of social groupdynamics? After observing a large group of players in a popular MMOG, as well asconducting several interviews with key identities within the group, I discovered three fundamental parts of identity creation, and created a model for use and applicationin different social situations and constellations..

This thesis has aimed to study steering process and institutionalization in the context of educational policy work. This has been conducted by using empirical material from the political decision-making process that preceded the implementation of a new national program on how principals should be educated and certified. By using an aggregated theoretical point of view containing new institutionalism and traditional Swedish curriculum theory, the process was analyzed from different perspectives. The results depict a process that contained several actors who tried to shape the principal education program differently. From the theoretical perspectives, the decision-making process could be understood as an act of both self-interest as well as trust in their own beliefs and cultural values.

The essay aims to highlight the newly arrived immigrant students? experience of social integration and social security in the Swedish school system, which is important for their further language and learning development. This essay aims to see it from the student's perspective. The main question in this essay is: What factors seem to matter the most for the newly arrived immigrant students in their language and learning skills, and what does the students themselves think about the issue? The study is based on a qualitative research method in the form of interviews and observations conducted in a multicultural school for a period of two weeks.

Abstract This essay has grown out of an interest for the subject of religion and religious education for upper secondary pupils in Sweden. Our society is characterized by cultural, religious and secular diversity, which also reflects in the classroom where individuals with different religious preferences share space and participate in discussions. One of my aims is that this essay can be a contribution for future studies in the religious field. Previous research has shown that Swedish pupils increasingly lose interest in the subject of religion (on a personal level but also more in general). There is a possibility that this picture might have changed since these studies where done, and that is what I want to investigate in this essay.

There are an increasing number of unaccompanied children coming to Sweden. Sweden is one of the countries in the world that receive many of them. This awoke my interest to investigate the assessment of financial assistance and ?other living expenses? considering unaccompanied children. My approach was a qualitative study including interviewing five social secretaries working in five different districts in Malmö.

The aim of this study has been to analyze how society is constructed in the workbook Möte med människor från andra kulturer, a popular material within the ?cultural competency? industry. The analysis has largely been carried out from the perspective of a pedagogy against oppression as it has been outlined by Kevin Kumashiro. I have found that the material combines discursive movements, which in complex and hybrid ways deconstruct, decenter, recenter and reproduce stereotypes and norms, through its normative language and pedagogy. A language constructing culture as cleanly demarcated, static and homogenous.

This study is based on interviews with five unit managers working in the functional disabilities business. The purpose of this paper is to examine how these unit managers see their roles and their leadership, and to give the reader an insight into what it might entail to be a manager in social work. Theories applied are the role theory and three leadership theories. The previous research this study made ??use of affects ?leadership in social work" and "manager's role and leadership style."Being a unit manager of the functional disabilities business means having a so-called middle management position, which entails expectations being directed upon them from various avenues.

The purpose of this study is to give a picture of the current status for the recruitment to forest machine operator educations in Sweden, how many the educators are and the outcome of this activity. The three at present different types of education are upper secondary school, polytechnic school and vocational school. The method used for the survey is telephone interviews, pre-broadcast issues were discussed and the responses were recorded. The results are then compiled and presented in linear form. The conclusions one can draw is that education is desirable and important. To get young people interested in forest machine operator education it is very important that the forest industry continues to develop attractive employment..

Many researches have been done about the difficulties in teaching children with disabilities and like in this case dyslexia, which is the disability my essay is focused on. Earlier researches have investigated how and what teachers do practically when they have pupils with dyslexia and what help they have in their work. I wanted to investigate how the theories in National Compulsory School Curriculum (Lpo94) and about inclusive education in relation to the actual work in one Swedish school. My essay, with help of other research, has taken the expression ?school for all? and it?s meaning to what is possible to do in a real life work situation, with the assignments that schools have in Lpo94.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the discourses of concepts related to diversity and ethnicity in Swedish cultural policy. It focuses on how the society is presented in different contexts and how people with a different ethnic origin than the majority, are represented in the cultural policy of the Swedish State. The study is restricted to concern immigrants. Six governmental cultural policy documents, reaching over a time period of eight years 1995-2003 are examined as follows: Which key terms are used in the presentations? Which contexts and discourses can be distinguished? Have the discourses changed over the time period examined, and if so, how? The theoretical starting point in the thesis is the discourse perspective of Laclau and Mouffe.

Already in 1988, different levels of participation in the election between different districts of big cities in Sweden were noticed. The problem with low political participation in specific areas has almost always been theoretically explained through an individual perspective. This study is therefore focusing on the problem from a contextual perspective. The hypothesis for the study is as follows, in the case of Malmö the level of participation in elections are affected by social environment in which segregation will be the single highest factor. The dependent variable, participation in the election was tested by the independent variables representing social environment; origin, education, gainfully employed and income.

Bakgrunden till studien grundar sig i ett ökat fokus på hälsofrämjande arbete i arbetslivet. För att utveckla ett mer hälsofrämjande förhållningssätt har ledaren en viktig funktion, en aspekt vi beslöt oss för att studera närmare. Uppsatsen är en intervjustudie av kvalitativ karaktär, där sex ledare samt en hälsopromotor i Lunds kommun har intervjuats. Syftet med studien är att belysa ledarnas arbete med, och deras uppfattningar om hälsofrämjande arbete. Vi identifierar de insatser som utförs för att främja hälsa på arbetsplatser, samt studerar de olika sätt på vilka ledarna inhämtar och vidarebefordrar kunskap inom området.

In this thesis, we have analyzed the Swedish debate about whether to impose a national canon, and make it compulsory in school curricula. Cecilia Wikström, a Liberal MP in Sweden, made the suggestion in July 2006, and the focus of our analysis is the subsequent debate during July and August 2006. Our materials are polemical articles from three Swedish newspapers, which we have examined to find the main ideas and arguments behind the various standpoints. Three issues have been our main focus; first, we have analyzed which concepts of culture the various debaters have used, where we have seen a difference between an anthropological and an aesthetical concept, but, surprisingly, found that there isn?t a very strong correlation between an aesthetical concept of culture and being pro-canon, or between an anthropological concept of culture and being anti-canon.