This master thesis explores the nature of public participation as a central and most current subject in the field of urban planning. A first impression exposes a seemingly unanalyzed consensus on the values and benefits which public participation provides the process of urban planning. The city may be a concern to all its inhabitants; hence knowledge and opinions of the local public are of great importance for the urban development. But is there really something new to these assumptions, and are the advantages of increased public participation in urban planning always obvious?  By using action research as a main method, I have put myself into the context of the Swedish municipality of Nacka and their projects dealing with the development of public participation.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how patients who had undergone Hallberg's  TIA-school at Enköpings Lasarett rate their physical and mental health 18 months after participation. Another purpose was to examine whether they re-diagnosed with a TIA or suffered a stroke. The design of the quantitative study was longitudinal and descriptive. In the study 16 patients participated and to measure their mental and physical health the questionnaire SF36 was used. The results showed that none of the participants suffered a new TIA or stroke since participation in the TIA-school.

This thesis is using the theory of participatory democracy to show how one can work to increase the participation in the society, between elections as well as during elections. For a couple of years now many traditional democratic countries have been struggling with low voting rates. Hence this, I find it interesting to study what has been done to cope with this problem. The government in Sweden had a project working on how to make more people involved in the democratic process, especially people that to a lesser extent participate in this process. In this thesis two projects will be studied, Möllevångsgruppen and Unga väljer Miljö i Malmö.

The following report is a constructive responsive evaluation of Svalövs communes unit for newly arrived refugees based on a qualitative user- and stakeholder model. The main purpose is to evaluate the units? quality from a user and stakeholder perspective. The main findings are that the users and stakeholders are satisfied with the quality of the units? services but request further social and structural participation.

This paper is about teachers ?attitudes towards their pupils, both today and in the past. It describes various events with Adam, Elsa and Kajsa which I have observed at my preschool. Via a retrospective analysis I have attempted to understand how teachers ?views of their pupils has changed from the beginning of the century to the present day.

Previous studies shows that high-intensity aphasia interventiongives better results than intervention that is less intense. This study evaluateda working model at a hospital in Gothenburg which involve related personsin intervention. The model prescribes daily training in the home. The caseseries design study investigated the effect of intervention on auditorycomprehension, impact on participation and examined how the relatedperson judged that communication was affected. Four participants withsevere aphasia received intervention for 16 weeks, 8 of which includedintensive training at home and at the clinic, while 8 weeks only includedclinical intervention.

Children's Need In Focus (BBIC) is a processing and documentation system used in child welfare cases to investigate, plan and monitor interventions. The BBIC has had a breakthrough in Sweden and out of the country's 290 municipalities, there are 284 that use the system daily as a tool in cases involving children. The purpose of this study was to examine how social workers experience the BBIC as a working system and what strengths and weaknesses there are in the BBIC concept. We wanted our study to examine how the BBIC could possibly enhance the quality of childcare matters, but also how the BBIC could potentially increase children's participation in cases. We have performed qualitative interviews with eight social workers who work in four different municipalities where the BBIC is applied daily.

The aim of the study was to investigate the performance of postlingually deaf adults on parts of the swedish dysarthria test Dysartribedömningen, and to compare these results with a matched group consisting of normal hearing speakers without any known speech disorder. The group consisted of 17 participants ranging between 42-86 years of age. Participants were assessed focusing on articulation, prosody, intelligibility and through a self-assessment of communicative participation. There was a statistically significant difference between groups on prosody that manifested primarily as a slower speaking rate in the cochlear implant users. No significant differences between groups as to articulation, intelligibility or communicative participation could be found.

The study which has been made is a qualitative observational study where play forms and participation of adults were observed in two preschools. The word play is defined in the study with an ?as-if? ?nature based on Knutsdotters definition which differs play and activities from each other. The observed play form has been analyzed according to the concept of imitation and imagination play. To get a complete base of the study a few children on some occasions drew what they played or would like to play.Through photographs of these drawings and how the children described and explained what they drew a connection could be made with the children?s play forms.

AbstractIn my study I have investigated how a constructed outdoor green environment can beused, managed and how it works. The study also investigates the concept of socialsustainability, where, for example, civil dialogue is a method to promote this. Thisinvestigation mainly gives account for the inhabitants viewpoint but also a gardenersperspective. The study focuses on the planning process of the study object, what theoutcome has been and how the users of the green environment, think about the result. Inthe process there has been a strong concern of involving the residents and others usingthe area.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka om, och i så fall hur, barns konsumtionsmöjligheter påverkar den sociala delaktigheten bland barn i förskola/skola/fritids. Vi ville fånga skolpersonalens upplevelser av fenomenet för att förstå hur detta skulle kunna hanteras. För att svara på syftet har en kvalitativ studie gjorts med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer med personal som arbetar inom verksamheterna. Resultatet visar att barnens konsumtionsmöjligheter till viss del påverkar den sociala delaktigheten. på både gott och ont.

The purpose of this media scientific study is to contribute to a better understanding about how blind people?s empowerment and participation may affect their role in the digital society.Earlier international studies in this area have shown that blind people not only need more knowledge then the seeing population about the computer, but also about the technology behind their tools for using Internet. The results from these studies have also shown that Internet increases the blind people?s independents and that those who use Internet feel more involved in the society.A qualitative method was chosen to study the three most common categories from the earlier studies: knowledge of technology, empowerment and participation. Are there differences in the results compared to our study in Sweden 2014?Interviews with eight blind, experienced computer users have shown that knowledge of technology is essential for their use of Internet and that the Internet increases their empowerment and their participation.

Work environment activities, such as work health promotion, can take place at different levels - though the best result is obtained when all levels can interact. The overall aim with this study was to examine the impact of health promotion on work related well-being and stress in an industrial company. The focus was on employee experience of and participation in company initiated wellness activities. A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted in which parts of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ II) were used to examine factors in the psychosocial work environment, and well-being was examined with the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). In all 303 employees (50 %) responded to the survey.

In this thesis we have examined opinions of the social web in Scandinavian Library journals. Our interest lies in aspects about the social web, and above all about Library 2.0. The central question is how this new technology, a growing digitalization, and a social web that focuses on interactivity and participation affects opinions about libraries. We have investigated opinions about Library 2.0, with respect to three different dimensions: The role of the library in society, power/hierarchy and knowledge. The method used in this thesis is idea analysis using these dimensions as analytical instrument.

ÖREBRO UNIVERSITY Department of behaviour, social and legal science Social works C-essay 41-60 p Autumn term 2006 Title: Obstacle to employment on the labour market. Grown-up people with mentally retardation. Authors: Hansen Mikael & Sjöberg Marita Instructor of study: Antonson Sivert ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to try tofind out how persons with mentally retardation, working in the municipally daily activities develop and participate in everyday life. We especially want to find explanations for why there are so few among the retarded persons who are taking part in the regularly labour market. What will the instructor within the municipally activities achieve with his/her work? In what way will a retarded person have a possibility to participate in society and to take part in daily activities? Trough observations and semi structured interviews havr information and experience been collected.