The purpose of this study is to examine to what extent the senior level Swedish school can be viewed as supporting, or counteracting, a colonial discourse that legitimizes global and national injustices. The study is executed through a discourse analysis of five textbooks in social science for senior level Swedish schools.Using elements from Foucault and Edward Said a theoretical framework is constructed, in which a colonial discourse is perceived as structured around four clusters of ideas, namely (i) the use of dichotomies, (ii) the concept of progress and civilization, (iii) the construction of -we- as synonymous with (ii), and (iv) the construction of -the others- as the opposite of (ii) and, therefore, the opposite of -us-.The results show that a colonial discourse is still highly present in the textbooks, in that the texts are structured around dichotomies such as tradition/modernity and democracy/dictatorship. Sweden and the Western world are perceived as closely associated with democracy, freedom, and modernity, whereas -the others- of the world are being associated with e.g. poverty, conflict, tradition, and ignorance. -The others- within Sweden, i.e.

The focus in this paper was on managers in the middle position in the care of the elderly and people with disabilities. The aim was to develop knowledge about the conditions of work among managers in the middle position and what they characterized as good leadership and which strategies they used in their work. The empirical data consisted of nine qualitative interviews with managers in the middle position in the municipality of Halmstad.The frameworks that mainly limited the middle managers' discretion were laws, political regulations and most of all it was the allocated budget. Their discretion was found closer to the operation such as working methods, recruitment and changes in job schedules. The middle managers spent the majority of their working hours with personnel administrative work and that they often had to prioritise among their tasks.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine some pre-school teacher's and parent's perceptions about communication within the pre-school context and how this can be described in terms of conceptual dichotomy.The empirical investigation consists of a qualitative study, where data have been collected by interviewing two focus groups and one single parent.The main theoretical tools which the study uses as its premiss is Derridas' theory of hospitality and Habermas' theory of deliberative dialogues. The study also considers the conception of the intermediate domain as an arena for communication between parents and pre-school teachers, and further more the conception of stereotyping in social and cultural contexts.In order to explore these processes I have used the qualitative method of interpretation; Hermeneutic, also with a narrative approach to the analysis.The results and the analysis of the data show that the interviewed parent and pre-school teachers have a poor sense of knowing how much influence to give to each other. The parents were not satisfied with the level of open communication and how the pre-school teachers share information of the activities..

The purpose of this study is to examine the role social media canplay in a school library context, based on a theoretical model,called ?A new model for the public library in a knowledge andexperienced society? by Henrik Jochumsen, Dorte Skot-Hansenand Casper Hvegaard Rasmussen.The bachelor thesis aim to answer three research questions, theyare as follow: Which request of social media is there by teachersand pupils at a high school library? Which social media is the mostrequested by teachers and pupils at a high school library? Andshould the library services for teachers and students be improved ifsocial media were used at a high school library?The methodology used for this study was an inquiry investigation.My findings are presented in a context of previous, relatedresearch and the study shows that teachers and pupils are wellinformed of what social media is and they use social media whenthey are at school.The thesis also shows that the unit I study, a vocational trainingunit, is more or less interested in what the school library can do forthem with social media.They seldom are at the school library and they seldom use theteach platform were they can find library services.This result can open up for the school library to meet the users at anew arena with for example social media..

Regimen i Iran är i denna stund utsatt för stor press från USA och EU3 som vill få regimen att avbryta dess kärnteknikprogram. USA hävdar tillsammans med de europeiska stormakterna att det iranska kärnteknikprogrammet inte har fredliga syften, istället menar de att det används som kamouflage för att utveckla kärnvapen. Iran menar att påståendena är osanna och att landet är i behov av kärnenergi i takt med att deras befolkning snabbt expanderar. Syftet med vår uppsats är att bringa klarhet kring problematiken. Därför fokuserar vi på att undersöka Irans motiv för respektive emot ett anskaffande av kärnvapen.

This Bachelor thesis deals with the act of the British Labour Party when they recalled a referendum promised by former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Tony Blair promised a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty, but his successor Gordon Brown later recalled it when the Lisbon Treaty succeeded the Constitutional Treaty as the legal foundation of the European Union.The main purpose of this thesis was to with help from various theorethical frameworks explain why the Labour Party decided to do this, even if this decision gave the main opposition party, the Conservative and Unionist Party (the Tories), the chance to heavily critisize the Labour Party, and picture them as traitors.The research questions were:? What are the reasons that the Labour Party went from being a Eurosceptical party, to become more pro-European?? Why did the Labour Party cancel the promised referendum on the new treaty of the European Union?Various answers were found for the first research question. Among the most important was that it was a part of the over all transition which led to the launch of New Labour.The second research question was answered with three explanatory models based on actions of the Labour Party on three arenas; the electoral arena (based on power, this model claims that the Labour Party act as they do because the know the Tories would not act differently if they were in office), the parliamentary arena (based on ideology, this model claims that Labour want the Lisbon Treaty because it has a stronger social dimension than earlier treaties) and the internal arena (based on the problem of identification, this model claims that the Labour Party identifies itself with the British government, and not just the voters, and are afraid of damaging Britain?s influence in the EU and international politics if Britain says ?no? to the Lisbon Treaty)..

This thesis analyzes the media debates generated by the election of Omar Mustafa to the board of the social democratic party, and the appointment of the conservative Minister of Labour, Elisabeth Svantesson. More specifically, the aim is to analyze newspaper material through a discourse analyze, to see if and how religious affiliation effects the possibilities to act as a political representative. Theories of othering and intersectionality serve as theoretical points of departure. Further, chains of equivalence from Laclau and Mouffe?s discourse theory are used to study how categories as ?us? and ?the other? are constructed in the material, and how these processes of categorization relate to the intersection of religion, gender and ethnicity.

The relationship between the government and organised interest in Sweden has changed. Formally considered as a good example of a corporatist state the country during the last 15 years or so experienced a more pluralistic system. This thesis is a qualitative study which discusses how interest groups seek to influence decision makers and policy thru lobbying and public opinion. It also examines how interest groups work with advertising and public relations in a changed climate of mass media. The main method of gathering material has been done thru interviews of representatives of different interest groups.The results of the study paint a picture where the interviewed organizations experience a vast competition in communication and information.

The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the participation of immigrant organizations to the partnerships in the Equal program in Sweden. The focus of the study was on the significance of the participation for the organizations and its impact on them. The point of view of the participant organizations has been object of study through interviews with the persons who, on behalf of the organizations, have been in charge for the work with Equal. Interviews have been conducted with people representing 10 of the 21 immigrant organizations that have been identified among the Swedish Equal partners. Many organizations have experienced that the participation has strengthen the awareness of target groups about their needs and their possibilities.

During a political election the public?s interest in politics and political journalism increases significantly. During the American presidential election in 2012 a big amount of articles on that topic were published in two of Sweden?s largest newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet. Political journalism tends to frame politics as sports, game and scandals rather than focusing on the political issues.

The main purpose of this study was to examine, and illustrate, highschool social workers experiences of pupils with self-injurious behaviour. Self-injurious behaviour in this study refer to individuals who harm them-selves, with physical injury as consequence, without purpose to commit suicide. A qualitativ method was used and five highschool social workers, in the south of Sweden, were interviewed.The main questions were:- What kind of experiences have highschool welfare officers of pupils with self-injurious behaviour?- What view, and personal opinion have the welfare officers at the problem, and how do this affect them in their work with these pupils.The school social workers experiences of pupils with self- injurious behaviour, were for instance that the pupils often feel ashemed over their behaviour and that they often have lowe self-esteem. The social workers seemed to imagine the behaviour as a copingstrategy.It turned out that the social workers personality and their personal opinion regarding self-injurious behaviour, were of great importance in their work with these pupils..

I denna uppsats undersöker vi huruvida en av de mest lästa tidningarna i Sverige, Metro, påverkas av sitt avtal med SL och hur det tar sig uttryck i tidningens innehåll. Att dagspress påverkas av andrahandsaktörer är ett stort demokratiskt problem, eftersom media har en central roll för agendasättningen i samhället. Denna roll blir allt större när Sverige strävar efter att öka de deltagar- och samtalsdemokratiska inslagen i samhället.Empirin består av Metro och DN:s rapportering kring SL i mikrofilmsformat under tre perioder. Genom kvalitativ textanalys söker vi skillnader hur SL framställs i respektive tidning.Vi anser att det finns element som tyder på viss påverkan på Metros framställning av SL. Man finner bland annat positiva vinklingar av SL:s roll i olika processer..

The question of direct citizen participation in politics and administration is a contestable one. Its proponents claim that it has positive consequences even for the more "traditional", representative democracy, since participation leads to an increased political knowledge and increased political interest, and thus creates a revitalised democracy. Critical voices have however been raised to the validity of this claim. Critics have also pointed out direct participation as problematic, because it leads to problems of political inequality: a difference of political influence between ? on the one hand, the citizens participating directly and those that restrict their political participation to voting, and ? on the one the other hand ? between the institutions, for example schools, that employ, and don?t employ this method of direct citizen influence.In this essay, these two points of criticisms are tested in the context of user-boards in elementary and secondary schools.

The aim with this paper is to investigate how the Social Democratic Party (SAP) deals with the question of economic migrants, or more specifically how the problem is represented by the Social Democratic Party, and how this representation has developed over time. The SAP's theory became recently contested by a competing theory that was caused by the predicted future demographic development in Sweden, combined with the EU's eastern expansion. The first factor contributed to the re-write of the theory, to a theory that saw economic migrants as a solution instead of a problem, in direct contrast to SAP's theory. The second factor was a direct threat to SAP's labour immigration policy. This leads to my second question, how did SAP respond to this pressure?The answers to these questions are achieved by using discourse analysis by applying a problem oriented theory on empirical material, constituting propositions, articles in mass media and parliamentary debates.

Utifrån ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv och med en diskursanalytisk metodologi skärskådas Folkpartiet Liberalernas integrationspolitik. Denna politik bör förstås som en strategi att hantera ett ?utanförskap?. Samhällsforskaren Ruth Levitas har i sina studier av brittiska New Labour beskrivit tre diskurser som hon menar dominerar eller har dominerat partiets syn på ?utanförskapet?.