AbstractEssay in political science, C-level, by Line Säll, spring semester 2007.Tutor: Susan Marton.?To do things by the rule of law -A study in the discretion of front-line bureaucrats?This essay has it´s starting-point in the theoretical problem of social science to unite democracy and bureaucracy. The purpose is to illustrate the problems with the discretion of front-line bureaucrats in a democratic state. The theoretical approach is front-line bureaucracy-theory. Certain characteristics of the work of street-level bureaucrats makes it impossible to severly reduce discretion.

This thesis deals with the leisure-time reading of fourteen men with two different occupations, teachers of technology and directors of companies. The main reasons for writing the thesis are that very little is written about mens reading habits and also statistics that tell that mens reading decline regardless of educational level. The purpose has been to compare the reading and relations to literature between the two groups of men and to find out if any differences have to do with factors such as social background or age. The questions we have asked our collected data has been what, how and why the men read. We have tried not to investigate the work-related reading although we are aware of the difficulty in separating this from the leisure-time reading.

The education curriculum states that one of the tasks for schools and preschools are to promote gender equality by discouraging traditional gender roles. Gender equality is therefore a part of the fundamental values of the education system. In order to be able to work with the issue of gender equality, the employees need help and further education. Therefore some schools and preeschools contact a teacher specialized in gender equality work.In this essay I have chosen to do a field study of such a teacher at work during different workshops with nurses and teachers. The aim is to examine how she discusses gender ideas and what discussions arises from the meetings with the attendents.

This study is based on interviews with five unit managers working in the functional disabilities business. The purpose of this paper is to examine how these unit managers see their roles and their leadership, and to give the reader an insight into what it might entail to be a manager in social work. Theories applied are the role theory and three leadership theories. The previous research this study made ??use of affects ?leadership in social work" and "manager's role and leadership style."Being a unit manager of the functional disabilities business means having a so-called middle management position, which entails expectations being directed upon them from various avenues.

The aim of this essay is to examine how future upper secondary school teachers within social science comprehends their future proffessional role. The aim is also to see whether the education is of importance to their suspension for their future professional role. Focus will especially be on the teachers civil servant role, where the aim is to see how their identification suspends to the governmental expectations on their future civil servant misson. The essay is based on a qualitative method, which is focused conversational interviews.The result indicates that future upper secondary school teachers within social science, who are about to finish their education, have a somewhat deeper sense of identification with the teachers civil servant mission compared to those in the beginning of their education. The result also indicates that the future upper secondary school teachers identification are in line with the governmental expectations on their civil servant mission.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to study whether bibliometrics can serve as a method to analyse the humanities.To investigate this a literature study was conducted that examined previous studies concerning bibliometrics and the humanities. Furthermore a bibliometric analysis of comparative literature was carried out. These research findings were then further examined through the perspective of theories on intellectual and social organization of the scienceThe bibliometrical study includes 38 literature journals (11 855 articles in total) which were downloaded from ISI's Web of Science. The material was analysed by using co-citation analysis and co-word analysis. The results of the study are presented in five co-citation maps.

The purpose of this thesis was to explore how Swedish librarians working with educational matters In Swedish: studiebibliotekarier experience his/her pedagogic work in the context of a public library. My intention was thus to reach an understanding of how they experienced their educational work. The following questions were asked: 1 How do the librarians experience the physical environment created for their students? 2 How do the librarians experience the co-operation with others involved in their work? 3 How do the librarians experience the formal task that he/she now is given? 4 How do the librarians experience their own pedagogic qualifications regarding the demands that are made upon them by the students? I have interviewed six librarians and incorporated theories on pedagogic roles in an educational context. I reached the conclusion that these librarians believed the environment to be important for the outcome of the students success with their studies.

The purpose with the study is to see how middle managers in communal elderly care looks at the implementation of the salutogenic way of working in their operations. And how it affects the middle managers working situation. We studied which scope of actions middle managers has in the salutogenic way of working. We had previous knowledge that the salutogenic working way is an ongoing work of development in several communes, and therefore we chose to study in a profound way how this work of development affects the middle managers working situation. To reach a deeper knowledge about how the salutogenic way of working affects the middle managers working situation we conducted a qualitative study with been seven semi-structured interviews with middle managers in different geographical communes.

This paper deals with Will Kymlicka's and Charles Taylor's theories of multiculturalism, and the criticism of these theories by Jürgen Habermas and Seyla Benhabib. It also gives a brief background to the Swedish integration and minority policies and places them in relations to the academic discussion. Taylor advocates cultural survival to be a legitimate policy objective and Kymlicka argues that rights should be diversified in order to adapt to different needs of cultural minorities. The thesis aims to confront the theories with interviews of four persons who voluntarily or by profession work for the interest of minorities. The theories have been operationalized as questions and structured in four themes with the purpose of analyzing the interviews.

This thesis focuses on the problems involving immigrants and their voting behaviour in Sweden. We presuppose that immigrants vote in a far less extent than Swedish citizen according to general statistics. We try to explain and give solutions to this problem. To our help we use both integration theory focusing on multiculturalism and electoral participation theories.Starting off in these two theories, we have further analyzed a number of policies issued to solve the participation dilemma. The policies were issued in order to elevate the socio-economic standards, inform citizens and close the distance between voters and politicians.Our results show that what work best is long term ventures aiming at integrating immigrants to the Swedish society.

The advantage and the possibility of keeping track of a number of vehicles to make work practice more effective and smooth is today a favorable choice for Visual Units Logistics customers. We?ve been evaluating the software and trying to take it one step further and letting not only the individual user, but maybe, the company as a whole benefit from its advantages. This has been done by using methods like letting ourselves get to know the software, user case studies, workplace studies, interviews and future workshops. This resulted in a prototype introducing a new function designed with all collected data in mind trying to make the software, Visual Units Logistics, even more effective for the every day work practice of the user. A new function to keep track of vehicles outside the main working area at the same time as you still can keep track of the other vehicles in the field..

Man spends most part of the day at work and is therefore influenced by it?s ambience. That?s why it?s important that the environment at work is health promoting and can function as a supportive environment. The purpose of this study was to describe job satisfaction among employees and to analyse a possible connection between job satisfaction and employees experiences of SOC.

Background: The majority of nurses experience work relatedstress, which can lead to a negative impact on patient care. Thestress can be handled by coping strategies. Aim: To illuminatecoping strategies among nurses experiencing work relatedstress. Method: The study has been accomplished as aliterature study, with a systematic review of scientific articles.Findings: Following coping strategies appeared: problemsolving, long-term strategies, passive strategies, leisurestrategies, social support and mental strategies. Conclusion:Awareness of coping strategies for dealing with work relatedstress, can lead to improvement in patient care..

The focus of our study was to examine personal assistants and group home assistants experiences of stress at work, how they cope with stress and how it affects the relationship with the care recipient. The study is made out of a qualitative frame and based on interviews with two personal assistants and four group home assistants. Our theoretical perspectives consist of Aaron Antonovsky?s SOC theory, Richard Lazarus theory about coping and also sociologist Johan Asplund?s theory about social interaction. The result indicates that the experiences of stress are individual and varied among the participants while the presence of stress at work is a shared apprehension.

Absenteeism due to sickness has increased during the last few years and has become a serious problem of society in Sweden. Among the sick-listed there is a group that apart from being sick are also unemployed.The aim of this paper was to study if and how the unemployed seek employment when they are sick-listed. Central questions have been if the unemployed seek employment while they are sick-listed? To what extent do they seek employment? Which methods do they use and what demands do they make of their prospective jobs?The survey was based on a quantitative method and the answers that 100 unemployed sick-listed in the northwest of Skåne, Sweden gave to questionnaires. The result was analysed using a bivariate analysis in order to find patterns or obvious differences.The result showed that more than half (60 percent) of the people in the survey group used up to an hour or more per week to search for or apply for work.