The aim of this essay was to examine what kind of help and support social services departement can offer gamblers and their relatives. We also want to examine what the relatives to the gamblers think about the help and support they have got from the social services departement. Central questions we asked were: What kind of help and support can social services department offer the gamblers and there relatives? What kind of help is there to get for children respectively adult relatives? Do the relatives consider that the social worker have enough knowledge about the problem? Do the social workers consider that they have enough knowledge about the problem? This is a qualitative study of three women relatives to the gamblers, three social workers and one specialist in this problem. We have delimited the study to one big city in Sweden.

Folkhälsovetenskapligt program.

The aim of this thesis is to study discursive change in the Swedish environmental political discourse between 1987-2005. The text of three Swedish budget propositions are analysed for this purpose.The results from the analysis are related to a few relevant theoretical perspectives that hold partly different views on what constitutes ?sustainable development? and ?ecological modernization?. Through these theories the thesis continues the discussion around the two central but somewhat blurry terms sustainable development and ecological modernization. The aim of this discussion is to conclude whether the discursive change in Swedish environmental politics can be said to go more in the direction of sustainable development or ecological modernization, or if elements of both perspectives can be found.The analysis shows that the Swedish environmental discourse has come to include more and more political fields such as general welfare politics, during the period.

The present study deals with the scope of action available to a social worker when analyzing, assessing and proposing measures regarding young persons experiencing social problems. The interest in the subject area emanates from the fact that the number of youth placed in different forms of round the clock out-of-home care in Sweden increases, whereas research in the subject shows that such placement gives few positive results and sometimes even has negative consequences for their development.The study investigates how the preconditions of the social worker influence their scope of possible action, in particular as regards their place of work, the situation of the individual dealt with, and the profession itself being one based both on scientific evidence and knowledge gained by experience. Lipsky?s theory on ?street-level bureaucracy? and Hasenfelds theory on human servicing organizations form the theoretical framework of the present study. The empirical input comes from interviews with focus groups of active social workers.The analysis of the interviews shows that social workers generally feel that they have a broad scope of action as far as the regulatory framework and office management are concerned.

The major difference between venture capital-firms and other financiers is that their business idea is not only providing capital but also knowledge in business development. The ownership structure of an venture capital-firm can be private as well as public. The Swedish government is today one of the major actors in the Swedish venture capital-industry. The purpose of this study is to shed light on how venture capital-firms involve itself in its portfolio firm and if this contributes to an increased value of the portfolio firm. We also try to shed light on differences in how a public and a private venture capital-firm gets involved in its portfolio firm and if there is any difference in how they can contribute to added value.We have chosen to interview two public and two private venture capital-firms and one of their portfolio firms.

AbstractAt the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 the nations stated that traditional environmental policies were not sufficient to handle the multidimensional challenges posed by sustainable development. Governments needed to broaden their political decision making procedures in order to coordinate and integrate environmental, social and economic policies. Therefore a new tool was introduced in Agenda 21, National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSDS). The aim of an NSDS would be to bring together actors from all parts of society to jointly reach a consensus on how to work towards the vision of a sustainable society. An NSDS would be seen as a strategic tool to help focus national policies for SD.

Theory of mind involves the ability to take another person?s perspective in thought, emotions and intentions.  There is today a lack of instruments to assess children?s development of Theory of Mind (ToM) in Swedish. ToM is considered by many scientists to be the basis for development of pragmatic competence. The relationship between these two abilities is complex and not fully resolved. Both abilities are important components for the development of social skills.    The purpose of this study was to compare 4 and 5-year olds ToM-ability measured with a Swedish version of Wellman and Liu?s ToM-scale, Sally Anne and Social Emotional Test with estimated pragmatic competence measured with the Children?s Communication Checklist (CCC).

The purpose of this study is to explore and understand the social and structural dynamics of an organization working with questions regarding development. The organization in question is Vi-agroforestry, a Swedish based NGO that works around the lake Victoria basin and the focus will be on their office in Rwanda. I have used a qualitative approach and conducted participatory observation as well as semi-structured interviews to gather data. I have emanated from the individuals in the organization by using a theory of microsociological organisationperspecive to understand how the employees create and is created by the existing social structures. (Blomberg, 2003) Even though the office in Rwanda only is a relatively small part of Vi-agroforestry?s operations it is still highly individual and independent from the rest of the organization.

AbstractIn Sweden all persons under the age of 18 are considered children. The age when it is possible to be held responsible for a criminal act, and therefor convicted in court, is 15. Society?s and, perhaps first and foremost, the authority?s attitude towards juvenile crime is that they should not be equal adults in the process within criminal law. Because children are considered essential for the society of tomorrow, it is important to pay extra attention to crimes committed by juveniles.

The purpose of this study is to use a qualitative approach to get an understanding of what is expected of social workers targeted towards women managers in social services. Nine social workers were interviewed. The empirical data was then analyzed on the basis of gender theory. Respondents did not see their supervisor as a manager but more as a social worker with special tasks. Our empirical data indicates that there is a strong belief that men and women possess different properties.

This study aim to investigate the conditions framing the professional development situation for physical education teachers (PE) in a small municipality in the south of Sweden. The Swedish National Agency for Education declare that "focus must be directed towards strengthening the teachers' profession", and that "schools need well-trained teachers and good teaching to help students achieve good results". The study focuses both the schools? contribution and the way in which the teachers take own initiative and are motivated to develop their professional skills. The investigation is all based on teachers' perspectives.

The EU- citizenship was established in the Maastricht Treaty in 1993. This citizenship involves rights to free movement, election rights to the European Parliament, diplomatic protection and the right to petition to the Ombudsman. In my analysis I discuss the implications of the EU- citizenship for the individual. The development and legal status of the union citizenship is examined in order to give a general understanding of the implications. In addition, I conduct a case study concerning the EU- citizenship's impact on workers rights.

The purpose of my research was to develop new knowledge about teachers' experiences of interaction between teachers and students with weak reading comprehension and how these teachers feel that the phenomenon of interaction is expressed in a school context. A focus-group interview with four teachers who have been employed between 4-25 years have been conducted with a hermeneutic research approach as a basis for understanding teachers' perceptions of the phenomenon of interaction. The results suggest that the interaction and communication is an important part of the work. In the communication and interaction results show that concepts such as dialogue, development , understanding and rhetoric are tools that teachers work with in order to develop a better reading comprehension for students..

AbstractEssay in Political Science, C ? level, by Ylva Björkegren, spring semester 2008. Tutor: Anna Spånning. ?Sida from a liberal feministic perspective.

The thesis Den ?fria? rörligheten aims to give deeper knowledge to the notion of social sustainable mobility. My previous knowledge within the subject is focused around mobility being biased and therefore gaining particular groups of actors within society and leaving others worse off. Therefore I chose to do a critical analysis of social sustainable mobility and more precisely show which problems that exist and why.To start with, I have created a framework for social sustainable mobility, from which I have looked at the empirical material. The general empirical material is mostly based on mobility in Sweden also a more specific study is made of the Öresundregion.