Deliberative democracy theory has been prominent within political science research since the early 1990?s, often applied in studies on postnational democratic constellations, in particular the European Union. Of the main institutions of the union, the European Parliament stands out as somewhat understudied from this point of view, which is why the main aim of this thesis is to study the conditions for deliberative democracy in the European Parliament.From deliberative democratic theory four criteria have been selected to function as methodological framework in analysing the institutional structure and proceedings of the parliament. Each of the criteria is applied separately to the practice and function of the plenary sessions, the parliamentary committees and the political groups. The analysis shows that the conditions for deliberative democracy differ between the three fora, as do their respective roles in parliament, but all in all they supplement each other.

The purpose of this essay was to examine how professional social workers work with follow up foster home placements. The study was based on qualitative interviews with ten professional social workers from different municipalities in Skåne in an attempt to answer the following questions:* What routines exist for the follow-up work with foster care?* What factors have an impact on how the follow-up is formed in the particular case?* How can the follow-up affect outcomes of the placement?* In what way could the work with follow-up foster home placements develop?The theories we chose to analyze our material from was the ecology of human development formed by Urie Bronfenbrenner and the theory of civil courage formed by Lennart Lundquist. The interviews were semi-structural which gave the respondents a chance to talk in a free way about the questions we presented.The result of the study showed that there is a difference in the way social workers form the follow-up work of foster care. The greatest difference is in whom the social workers include in their follow-up.

In the light of the problems the media industry are struggling with, local news reporting is only one of the challenges the news organizations are facing. When local editors is being moved to the cities the tie with the local community is being severed.The aim of this study has been to analyze how the inhabitants of Vilhelmina municipality talks about their experiences of local journalism. With methodological inspiration from the Critical discourse analysis (CDA) this study examined the discourses of local journalism, social media, journalism's role and municipal policy. The theorectical framework consisted theories of media and democracy, convergence culture and discourse theory.The survey was conducted with four focus groups interviews. The focus groups were divided in different cathegories based on the participants experiences, ages and employment.

The aim of the study was to examine both 1) how aware teachers in a specific area are about ICT tools in teaching ; and 2) how likely teachers are to use ICT tools to reverse the trend of unmotivated students and low achievement scores . I will look for answers through the following questions:How extensive is the knowledge of the teachers on digital and social media in education? How have teachers in the past year used various social media in their teaching? In what grade does ICT-supported teaching lead to higher motivation, participation and achievement? Is there a difference between the sexes, different stages (1-3, 4-6, 7-9) and number of years in the profession in knowledge of and openness to the use of ICT in education?The method used is a questionnaire in which a number of respondents have answered a number of questions about ICT tools in teaching. Validity of the study can be said to be high when the survey has measured what it intended to measure, however, I need to be careful in draw full account of the result as the response rate is low with only 39%. In summary, the results show that there is low awareness among respondents about the methods and the digital and social tools I lift in the survey.Mainly the respondents use some of the methods and the digital and social tools in preparation for the lesson.

Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this essay is to examine the ways two Swedish tabloid newspapers portray and describe the non-Socialist parties during the Swedish election of 2006.Material/Method: We have been studying 388 articles about the non-Socialist parties, derived from the two largest tabloid newspapers in Sweden, Aftonbladet and Expressen, during the month before the election. The method for the study is quantitative content analysis.Main results: The main conclusions drawn from this study are that Aftonbladet had twice as much written material about the non-Socialist parties, despite the fact that the paper is traditionally Socialist, while Expressen had consistently larger headlines. Both tabloids function to a higher degree as political actors than arenas for politics. The results are in accordance with earlier research, which shows that the degree of attention the non-Socialist parties acquired as a whole in the 2006 election, is remarkable. More than half of the articles in both tabloids portrayed the non-Socialist parties as a single political actor.

One of our big public health problems in Sweden is that human beings are too inactive in outdoor settings. That is why stress related diseases increase and influence humans both mentally and physical. The physical activity is halved among many children when they start school and the older they become the less they enjoy school. It is also an increasing problem that children and youth in today's society have lack of worthwhile experiences in the nature. The aim of this study was therefore to examine how the experience of outdoor environment had importance for health and learning on upper secondary school pupils.

The debate about affirmative action for ethnic minorities in countries with another majority culture is growing bigger in many parts of the world. However, it is often the debate misses the aborigines within the countries? borders. The aim of this paper is to investigate the possible conflict in opinions for xenophobic political parties when managing an aborigine population. I will use a qualitative method to study the ethnic minority Sámi in Sweden, Norway and Finland, and afterwards xenophobic parties view on them.To reach a result will I present a scale over Xenophobia ? Cosmopolitanism, which is described as a political cleavage.

Purpose/Aim : The aim of this study is to investigate and describe "kontaktmannaskapet" in the Swedish correctional system. I also aim to investigate if there are any differences between how the different actors involved in the correctional system look at this phenomena and how different sociological theories can be applied on "kontaktmannaskapet" in order to make it more comprehensible for the actors involved.Material/Method : This investigation is based on a larger qualitative inquiry consisting of several personal interviews. Further material has been used, such as literature and reports about "kontaktmannaskapet" inside and outside the correctional system.Main results : The overall opinion about the "kontaktmannaskapet" is positive. "Kontaktmannaskapet" as a working method of the correctional officer has a potential to become a useful instrument in rebuilding the lost identy of the inmate as well as reducing the stereotypes often associated with the relationship between inmates and prison personnel..

The thesis examines the crisis that the Swedish-flagged merchant marine underwent in the 1990s, that resulted in a narrow market for the Swedish-flagged fleet. In order to save the industry, the TAP- agreement was created, consisting of three parties, government- market and interest organizations.  Purpose in this thesis, is to exam how the TAP-agreement was carried out in relation to the parties, and how it correlates in relation to how the global political economy affected the Swedish maritime politics. Two questions are presented. Is the TAP agreement an expression of Swedish corporatism?  Which aspect of Global Political Economy is characteristic for the TAP agreement? A case study is preformed in three steps. The different parties of the TAP-agreement have been interviewed.  A comparative study of two Swedish crises has been performed, in order to establish the correlation between them, in regards to corporatism.  A survey, with the aim to pinpoint which aspect of Global Political Economy is characteristic of the TAP agreement. Findings in this thesis are that the TAP-agreement was designed through corporatism, and that the most important aspect of all, the Swedish flag was worth saving, for all parties. .

AbstractTitle: Konstruktionen av sverigedemokraternas va?ljareAuthor: Magnus Persson & Max LindbergTutor: Leonor Camaue?rCourse: Bachelor thesis, Media and communication. The aim of this essay is to use a Critical Discourse Analytical (CDA) approach to analyse the construction of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) voters in news articles to see if and how they are separated as a group from the Swedish democratic community. This aim is broken down into two questions.How are the Sweden Democrats (SD) voters constructed in news articles in Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Aftonbladet (AB) regarding the aftermath of the national elections?What differences are there between the portrayal of the Sweden Democrats voters and the agents that are used as opposition to them?To answer these questions we have used CDA. We have taken our approach from a modified version of Teun Van Dijks CDA model for analysing news articles.

According to the Swedish Red Cross, there are over 40 million people fleeing from war and conflict around the world. Some of these individuals are suffering from a disorder named PTSD (Post Traumatic Disorder Syndrome). This disorder is caused by previous experience incurred by war, conflict and violence. My intention with this study has been to increase the knowledge about refugees in Sweden suffering from PTSD syndrome. I have performed a study based on a project named Exigo.

Terrorism. A word that makes you think about different situations throughout the last decade that has passed. However, in this particular thesis the purpose is to examine both national and international terrorism from a Clausewitzian theory. The main point is to examine whether any of these types of terrorisms can fit in to this theory and as examples in this study are the terrorist organizations ETA and al-Qaida. The questions to be answered in this paper are if their aims can be explained as political and how far are they ready to go to have their way? Furthermore, the reason for this paper is to find an understanding for why the terrorist organizations act as they do.The result of this comparative study is that both terrorist organizations fit in to the theory because their goals can be seen as political and therefore can their aims justify their actions.

In this essay I examine how a municipal- and an independent upper secondary school compare to the ideal types the Company and the Political organization and how that affects the school practise as it?s described in policy documents. The conclusions are that the municipal school on a number of variables correlate to the ideal type the Political organization. At the same time the school reforms of the 1990s are considered as an intention to ?companylize? the municipal school and a number of tendencies how that have affected the municipal school are shown.

There is a growing interest for ethical consumption, in general as well as in the clothing industry. The consumption of ethical clothes is a complex phenomenon though, where aspects such as quality, style, function, price, time assets, accessibility and ethical attitudes affect the decision making. Researches that have been executed show the diversities in development between different countries. There are fairly strong indications that the ethical clothing market is more advanced in the United Kingdom than in Sweden and therefore these two countries are objects of this research. The aim with this thesis is to describe and explain what have affected the development of the ethical clothing market in the United Kingdom compared to Sweden. For that reason a qualitative approach has mainly been used, where deep interviews with people within the ethical clothing industry have contributed to most of the empirical part. As a complement secondary data such as statistics of the two countries have been used in order to investigate our area. One useful tool, among others, to investigate the macro environment is the SLEPT model.

Tolfterna was a popular education organization that existed between 1896 and1964 and that arranged social evenings and set up a library for working women. This thesis purpose is to investigate Tolfternas's activities in 1902-1907 and hereby place Tolfterna in the education- and library history. The thesis examines the library catalog and the protocols from the social evenings and analyses them by means of the popular education ideologies of the early 1900's: Patriarchal education, civic education, self-education and the domestic/housewife ideal.The analysis shows that the organizers of Tolfterna as well as the working women who visited the social evenings had political and social interests. This places Tolfterna in a civic education context.The social evenings contained a mix of politically orientated discussions, traditional lectures and entertainment as music and reading. The library had self-education orientation, it contained mostly fiction and was run by the working women.