The conflict over Western Sahara is primarily a conflict over sovereignty, with Morocco on one side claiming territorial rights, and the Polisario Front on the other side claiming popular sovereignty. The conflict has till this day not been resolved and is in a dire need of a solution. In order to determine which solution is the most appropriate, an understanding of all the complex aspects of the conflict is required. In this context, the study aims to examine the conflict in a globalized setting by analyzing how the American news agency AP News portrays the conflict. The US media conglomerate was specifically chosen due to its dominance over international information flows.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the underlying causes for the opening of Karlstad Public Library. In doing so a theory based on the actor/structure model within social theory is used. The structures and actors are intertwined and therefore need to be analysed together. To do so the theory poses a series of questions that needs to be answered. The method used is document analysis.

The aim of this study was to describe how male social workers who work in the section for children and family in one municipality in southern Sweden, experience that their gender influences their daily work. The main focus is to understand what it means to be a man in the social services department. The first research question was how the male social workers experienced how their gender influenced their contact with children and parents in terms of possibilities and obstacles. The second research question was how the male social workers experienced how their gender influenced their working place in terms of possibilities and obstacles. The third research question was how the male social workers experienced that their gender affected the work with women colleagues.

The purpose of this study is to identify and make attitudes among social workers towards homosexual and bisexual people visible, examine how these attitudes relate to their actions in their professional role and how these attitudes and actions can be understood by theories of heteronormativity and power. The study is a cross-sectional quantitative survey in the form of a questionnaire completed by social workers. The result shows that there are two groups among the social workers. One larger group that reproduces a norm of acceptance toward homosexual and bisexual people and one smaller that reproduces a heterosexual norm. This reproduction of heteronormativity increases the risk for homosexual and bisexual people to be made invisible and treated more negatively in contact with social workers, which in turn can lead to worse health among the clients..

The purpose of this study was to examine if there are common factors that lead to young people committing crimes according to professionals in social work, crime prevention and the police. The study also aims to examine if juveniles in Swedish suburbs commit more crimes, the consequences that follows and what actions socialworkers have for these juveniles. The study was conducted through qualitative interviews of five professionals in the area who were contacted from different units. In the analysis Goffmans (1971) theory of stigma was used and Goldberg's (2005) Conspiracy Theory. Some of the conclusions that could be drawn from the study was that there is not only one factor influencing young people to delinquency, but often combinations of different factors that lead to this.

Today automatic milking systems (AMS) are growing in popularity. In these systems the cows are loose and have to get to the robot and the feed on their own. The cows ranking in this system affect their welfare. In this study data from seven years in an AMS was used and analysed. The aim was to investigate how ranking could affect the behaviour of the cows at milking and at feeding.

The purpose of this study is to interogate the tension-laden relationsship between men (of the dominant classes and ethnicities) and feminism. Closely linked to this lies the question of how valid and relevant official Swedish goals of gender equality can be to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden.The essay is mainly an in-depth qualitative study concerned about questions such as; how does feminist researcher in Sweden perceive the question of men in/doing feminism and what are the implications of these perceptions for the Swedish goals of gender equality? Thus, in this study I´ve interviewed six feminist researchers, five women and one male, about their view of men doing/in/and feminism and about the adequacy of equality goals to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden.The main questions I posed in this essay was prompted by the Swedish political scientist Bo Rothstein accusation of two feminist Swedish researchers, Yvonne Hirdman and Maud Eduards, of deliberately harassing men interested in feminist theory and striving to create women-only spaces at the different Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research around Sweden. This would according to Rothstein violate the Swedish goals of gender equality where equal representation is essential.However, the empirical material shows a benign attitude towards men doing feminism and the interviewed all stressed the importance of diversity among feminist scholars and students.As for the Swedish goals of gender equality, the interviewed expressed diverse and contradicatatory answers concerning how valid those goals should be to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden.Contrasting the empirical material, my own argument in this essay circles around a critique of the validity of the Swedish goals of gender equality to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden. Seeing men as a group with groupbased experiences, perspectives and interest puts the female dominance at the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden in another light, making the absence of men not a question of harassment but a question of male privilege to stay ignorant and indifferent of gender relations..

The purpose of this essay has been to study the different discourses that are expressed in social welfare secretaries? assertions when they assess cases with elements of honour-related violence, intimidation and oppression. To do so I have used a discourse analysis theory and technique, based on three qualitative interviews with social welfare secretaries. The interviews were focused on vignettes, which were all fictitious cases with various elements of honour-related violence. One of the interviews was a focus groupinterview with four participants, while the other two interviews were individual.

Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka hur gymnasieelever upplever sociala medier utifrån Tajfels (1974) Social identity theory (SIT) samt vilka negativa och positiva aspekter gymnasieelever upplever med sociala medier. Med hjälp av en kvalitativ intervjumetod utgör svaren från tolv gymnasieelever i södra Sverige empirin för studiens resultat. Tidigare forskning har visat att responsen av andra medlemmar på sociala medier spelar stor roll för ungdomars psykiska välbefinnande. Resultatet visade att anledningen till informanternas användning av sociala medier till stor del berodde på att andra i deras umgängeskrets var aktiva, att informanterna upplevde kränkningar som ett oacceptabelt, men vanligt förekommande, beteende på sociala medier. Allt material bearbetades utifrån Burnards (1991) innehållsanalys där författarna utifrån empirins basala koder konstruerade följande huvudteman/underteman: kommunikation/anonymitet, etik/olämpligt beteende och tillhörighet/gruppidentitet.

The purpose of this study has been to investigate how frequently, and in witch ways, theories concerning the "late-modern" society are being used in the contemporary research of social work. My thesis is that theories concerning the late-modern society could be useful in social work research, foremost to shed light on, and broaden the understanding of, dilemmas and problems that are specific to the contemporary society. In the study I'm investigating all doctoral dissertations on social work written in Sweden between the years 2003 and 2006, and to execute the study I've applied a text analysis method in four steps. Simplified the four steps of the analysis can be said to investigate, if, how frequent, and in what way theories on the late modern society is being used in social work study. I'm also specifically investigating how problems exclusive to the late-modern society is being taken under consideration in the dissertations.In the analysis of my results I take a critical theory approach and I also discuss if theories on late-modernity is to be seen as a paradigm in the field of social work science.

Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur lärare tänker kring och ser på arbetet i arbetslag och samverkan. Studien bygger på ett fenomenografiskt vetenskapligt förhållningssätt och är baserade på kvalitativa intervjuer för att ta reda på några lärares uppfattningar och syn på arbetet inom och utanför arbetslaget. Intervjuerna är utförda på tre olika skolor i två olika kommuner och 16 verksamma lärare har deltagit.Studiens teoretiska bakgrund beskriver det postmoderna samhället och en skola i förändring. Bakgrunden behandlar begreppen balkanisering och Self-efficacy, hur grupper ser ut och vad som påverkar dem. Vidare skildras olika former av samarbetskulturer och modeller som beskriver hur samarbetet kan se ut och vad som påverkar.

The purpose of this essay was to look at how the Swedish Prison and Probation Service and the Social Service work with children who have parents in prison and what they can do to ease the contact between the children and their parents. In our study we have used different questions regarding parent role, gender, child perspective, contact possibilities and collaboration. We have interviewed six prison officers and five social workers in Skåne. We have also used previously written reports. Our conclusions are that the parent role is affected by imprisonment and more amongst the women than the men.

The purpose of this study has been to examine and analyze school counselors? experience of collaboration with other professions in the student health team and the preconditions for their work. The study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with six elementary-, and two high school student counselors in a medium-sized town in Sweden. The theoretical approach being used is: role theory, theory of professions and theory about collaboration. The study´s result shows that the school counselors? experience an unclarity in their job assignments and their role is often described as diffuse and vauge.

The purpose of this study was to examine how a local newspaper, Landskrona Posten, describes the youth that commit crimes. More specifically the aim was to see what kind of discourse the newspaper had about the young criminal and to see if that picture could create and confirm stereotypes. The theory and method used in the study is a discourse analysis. The study was based on nearly seventy articles that were published in Landskrona Posten in 2006. Three items were identified in the newspaper's description of the youth.

Traditionally and historically certain jobs have been recognized as male or female professions leading to the assumption that the barrier crossing men and women working in these gender atypical jobs are being less masculine and less feminine. The aim of this study is to examine similarities and differences among male social workers and female police officers in the experience of being a gender minority in their workplace and how it effects the construction of their gender identity. Working with a qualitative approach and using semi-constructed interviews the study was conducted by interviewing a total of five social workers and four female police officers, in six different communities, about their personal experiences of being a gender minority in a gender atypical job. The result shows both differences and similarities between the genders and their occupation; on a personal level neither of the respondents seemed to have a problem working in a gender atypical job although admitting that working in a ?female? and ?male? profession  had effects on their personality but not on how they viewed themselves as men or women.