This thesis studies how the Swedish government articulates social exclusion within the spring budget of 2007. Through a discourse theoretical approach, inspired by Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the empirical findings are reconstructed through the nodal point of labour and two chains of equivalence, based upon the duality between employment and unemployment. By viewing social exclusion as a phenomenon concerning discourse, identity and politics, this duality forms the basis of a deconstructive and hegemonic analysis.I argue that the term social exclusion is a powerful and flexible political concept in that it obscures ideological assumptions and objectives as well as draws attention away from alternative social concepts. Throughout the thesis social exclusion is stressed as a social category constituting the relation between individual and society. Hence I argue that it is of vital importance that the values underlying its usage are made explicit and that social exclusion as a floating signifier is made an object of academic analysis..

In the Maasai Mara National Reserve the native people, the Maasai, have lived for a long time following their own traditions. Their traditional lifestyle is that of a nomadic people, leading their cattle to the best grazing. Sharing their land with a large variation of different animals, one of them being the African Elephant (Loxodonta africana), the Maasi people have since long adapted to a life side by side with these giants, as well as the fierce predators living in the area.The aim of this study is to determine whether the Maasai settlement, known as Boma, has any impact on the elephants in the surrounding area. In order to conclude whether the bomas has an impact or not, observations of the wildlife were carried out. Observations were conducted in two different seasons, in December 2003 and May/June in 2004.

The purpose of this essay was to investigate which factors the individuals found important in the process of becoming a person with a drug-free life. The framing of the questions we had were to get the experiences, thoughts and wishes of the drug users. The survey was based on thematised qualitative interviews and focused in the personal stories of the interviewees. We interviewed four women and five men, all of which had several years of drug-abuse behind them. We found similarities and patterns and we could identify that the three most important things was the own motivation, will and that the drug-abuser had the possibility to change their social network and had the ability to find other important things in life..

Thesis purpose: The aim of this paper is to extend the knowledge of what influences the purchase decision of functional food in the store. By applying the M-R model in a new setting - the dairy department in grocery retailing in Sweden - and adding variables related to health attitudes, the aim is to contribute to existing research concerning in-store purchase decision making and store environment as well as consumer attitudes. Methodology: This thesis employs a quantitative strategy with a deductive approach and data has been collected with questionnaires. Theoretical perspective: Environmental psychology serves as an overarching framework where, more specifically, certain aspects of store atmospherics and some variables concomitant to health attitudes provide the theoretical base. Empirical data: The empirical data consists of customer purchasing a functional food product, Proviva, and this is contrasted with a test group, Bravo.

This study explores women?s experiences of the impact of remote work on work-life balance, and the potential consequences of telecommuting from a gender equality perspective. This investigation is contextualized by societal shifts post-pandemic, during which remote work has become increasingly prevalent. This transition raises new questions about the impact of home-based work on individuals? work-life balance, particularly for women who, according to prior studies, carry a greater responsibility for household tasks.

 The purpose of this study is to examine how individuals' social capital can affect the opportunities for finding a job. That is, what benefits social contacts can provide in the hunt for a new job. The main questions that will be answered throughout this study are:- Of what importance are social contacts when looking for a job?- What are the advantages and disadvantages that the respondents present with recruitment thru informal channels/social contacts?-What are the advantages and disadvantages that social contacts can provide in terms of personal recommendations when looking for a job according to the recruiters?The study is based on five qualitative interviews with mainly recruiters from various parts of the labor market. The collected empirical data that the study has yielded indicate that individuals' social capital of the highest degree is crucial for the opportunities they have to find a job.

The purpose with this study was to get a deeper understanding of how the social welfare secretaries experience the meeting with clients.Our main questions were how the social welfare secretaries thinks about their own way to behave in the meeting with clients, which difficulties/obstacles there can be a and which factors they think affect the meeting. What is it that makes the social welfare secretaries experience a meeting as good or less good.Theory used: ?naive theory? and ?theory of communication?. The social welfare secretaries emphasised the importance of respect and clarity in their relations with the clients. By contrast with literature, the hover between power and support was not found difficult.The goal is that the social welfare secretaries and the clients understand each other and that they reach the purpose with the meeting..

In recent years, existing solutions for cooling personal computer CPUs have been supplemented by a new product category, factory sealed water cooling loops. These systems, consisting of a water block with an integrated pump, a fan and a radiator, perform well compared to the air cooling solutions but are less effective than larger, custom-built water cooling systems.This project aims to explore the most important aspects of a factory sealed system and to identify possible cost-effective enhancements of the performance.The most significant differences between the different groups of water cooling loops are the block design and the pumping power. The performance of both categories is also largely dependent on the fan power, but increasing fan power has a large negative impact on the noise level.Both radiator size and fan model choice appear, in tests, to be relatively unimportant, presuming that the noise level is kept constant. The position and direction of the fan, however, has significant impact on both the temperature and the sound level.Water blocks can be designed in several different ways, both regarding the heatsink design and the flow direction. In simulation, flow with the inlet centered above the heatsink result in considerably lower pressure drop and slightly higher temperatures than flow through the block, for heatsinks with fin arrays.Creating a competitive product in this product segment certainly seems possible, as there are performance-increasing changes to be made that seemingly has little impact on the production cost.

This study had two different aims. The main aim was to investigate the dynamics and impact of African swine fever (ASF) on a farm in Uganda during a recent outbreak through a case study. The second aim was to estimate the presence of two important differential diagnoses of ASF: Classical swine fever (CSF) and Porcine Reproduction and Respiratory syndrome (PRRS).The field and laboratory based case study of the farm level dynamics of ASF virus during a recent outbreak (October-December 2010) on a farm in the district of Mityana, Uganda, was conducted, using interviews, ELISA and RT-PCR. The financial impact on the farm was also estimated. The impact of the outbreak was profound.

The purpose of my study is to gain insight into how the education system (particularly social studies) is morally-minded based on the governing documents, former students and a textbook. I wanted to find out what morally-minded means and if it has a big role in social studies. Through interviews with former high school students (when my thesis is aimed at high school) I wanted to find out how they felt their social studies were educational and which the values that they had taken on from the lessons. I also chose to analyze a textbook to get a broader understanding of how the morally-minded education is written in specific areas relating to social studies. My study is a qualitative study and what I came up with is that the former students consider their social studies teaching lacked to some degree when it came to the morally-minded education. My investigation concludes that the morally-minded education is important in social studies as the purpose of social studies is to promote active democratic citizens.

Behandlingsstudien gällande individuell KBT-behandling för social fobi genomfördes på en allmänpsykiatrisk öppenvårdsmottagning. I studien ingick 22 individer som alla uppfyllde kriterierna för social fobi enligt DSM-IV. Antalet sessioner planerades bli 15 stycken, med viss flexibilitet gällande individuella skillnader. Mätningar gjordes före och efter behandlingen. Som utvärderingsmått har använts SPS, SIAS, FNE, BDI, BAI, CSQ-8, gällande diagnostisk bedömning har använts ADIS-IV.

Our paper is targeting mainly students, but also all other people interested in social work with children. The purpose of our study was to investigate how the social workers experience and handle their work with children, who have been exposed to sexual abuse, and what kind of support and guidance the social workers are offered, in order to handle their working situation. We chose to perform a qualitative study, by the use of interviews, since we found it to be the most appropriate way to gather the information. Our conclusion is that the work with these issues is emotionally burdensome and requires a great commitment, however it is essential for the social workers to maintain a certain distance to their work, in order not to influence their personal lives. It is through experience and knowledge that the social workers learn how to handle their working situation.

Aktiviteter är betydelsefulla för ungdomar som vistas på institution. Forskning visar att ungdomar som har en meningsfull tillvaro med aktiviteter och en variation av sysselsättning under sin institutionsvistelse har större möjlighet att lyckas förändra ett problembeteende. En institutionsmiljö bör tillgodose ungdomarnas behov av en hemlik miljö och kontakt med pro-sociala ungdomar i övriga samhället. Syftet med denna studie är att belysa aktivteters betydelse för ungdomar som är placerade på institution, relationen mellan schemalagda och icke schemalagda aktiviteter samt vilken roll personalen har i utövandet av aktiviteter för ungdomar som vistas på institution. Studiens metodansats bygger på kvalitativa intervjuer med professionella som tjänstgör på ett HVB-hem (Vård och boende) för ungdomar.

This study means to research the importance and significance of the social and informal learning opportunities offered at a workplace. With Wenger?s theory about social learning and communities of practice as a starting point, this study will create understanding about how teachers at a school comprehend their opportunities for learning within the teacher community. The study is conducted at an independent school in Sweden, and is based on interviews with eight of the teachers employed at the school. The purpose of the study was to research how employees perceive how their social interactions with their colleagues can create learning, and what obstacles they might face along the way.

Swedish and international research indicate that many measures made by social services, concerning children and adolescents who are taken from their homes to an institution, are interrupted prematurely for different reasons. The word "breakdown" is used when a measure granted by the social service is broken before the projected time has passed. Research concerning how social service employees are influenced by measures being interrupted prematurely is very limited. The aim of this qualitative study is to examine how social service employees in Malmö are influenced by the premature interruption, "breakdown", of measures concerning children and adolescents who are taken from their homes to an institution. The theoretic basis for the study is Symbolic interactionism, especially the theory of Stefan Morén concerning conditions for change.The study is based on interviews with social employees, relevant material from research in this field and an examination of the theoretical basis.