The thesis analyzes the making of Nordic identity after the cold war which brought an end to Nordic exclusiveness of emphasizing ?soft power?. A need for a revitalization combined with an effort to enter History as an active subject, created constructivist project of a narrative style.My study relies on contemporary literature, focusing mainly on the construction of Nordic identity and regional cooperation in the 1990: s.I argue that Nordic identity was, and still is, determined of its comparable weakness in regard to the superpowers of the cold war, and, nowadays, to the EU.The architects of establishing a new Nordic identity, able to challenge a new Europe, fails in their effort, and what is left of their endeavour are separate states, each following their own agenda..

The aim of this study was to describe and to analyze needs and social efforts concerning unaccompanied/separated asylum-seeking children. The responsibility for the reception of this target group was transferred on July 1, 2006 from the Swedish Migration Board to the municipalities that sign an agreement with the Swedish Migration Board. Eight qualitative interviews were carried out with representatives for transit-residents and assigned municipalities in Skåne. Our main questions were: How has the reception of unaccompanied/separated asylum-seeking children been planned, how do the municipalities and the transit-residents consider their needs and what is the level of qualifications and competence within the municipalities in order to work with unaccompanied/separated asylum-seeking children on the basis of social efforts? We chose to clarify our findings on the basis of the attachment theory, which is applicable during the critical emancipation phase that the vast majority of the unaccompanied/separated asylum-seeking children find themselves in.

This thesis highlights the complex relationship between social movements and the mass media. The new social movements really have to struggle to get access to the media sphere, often enforced to use spectacular media strategies, and at the same time maintain their political messages. This struggle gives us reason to question the liberal notion of the media as a neutral arena for political communication and debate. In fact we argue that the media industry should be seen as a powerful actor and that the mass media serves to maintain and enforce an ideology that serves the political and economic elites in the liberal capitalist democracy. The Social movements that seek to question these elites and present an alternative, as they did during the EU-meeting in Gothenburg 2001, quite clearly gets far from neutral media image of the political actions taking place instead the are portrayed as violent or associated with violence and not presented as legitimate or believable political subjects..

The way society categorize different people into groups is problematic in the sense that the categorization can seem stigmatizing and have social consequences for those being categorized. Immigrants are one of those problematic categories.The following essay studies this categorization of ?immigrants? based on a governmental investigation of structural discrimination that took place in 2002-2008. The aim is to study the use of the category ?immigrant? and the consequences that follows such a categorization.

This is a study where the purpose was to investigate whether preschool teachers have a positive or negative attitude to outdoor education. Their view of outdoors education is also treated. The methods used were questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The survey was sent to all preschool teachers in three municipalities and on a social network. The interviews were conducted at a preschool, which had a form of outdoor profile.

This study is about youths, democracy and school. It seeks to describe and problemize the school's role in the democratic society. Firstly, using Social Representations Theory, 44 upper secondary shool pupils? representations, or conceptions, of democracy are described and discussed. These representations are then analyzed in relation to the school's role in the democratic society, as it is described by different researchers.The results show that many of the youths have a rather simplistic and abstract view of democracy, describing it only in terms of general principles and the main features of the representative democracy, such as voting in national elections.

The purpose of my essay is to study and analyse how adolescents with different socioeconomical backgrounds experience their consumtion needs.There are five main questions:1. How do adolescents experience their needs of status symbols, labeled clothes etc?2. In what way does adolescents experience influences over their consumtion options?3.

By the same time as the recent enlargement of the European Union, where Poland became a member, it was officially stated that the gender mainstreaming-policy was to be integrated into every area of EU. NGO:s working as entrepreneurs for the gender mainstreaming norm in Poland supported the accession largely because they believed it would help spreading the norm also on a national level. Qualitatively analyzing the Polish case and the difficulties gender mainstreaming as a norm candidate meets with I contrast expectations with what could actually be EU:s role in this matter.Arguing that EU is a context with room for spreading norms by both bargaining and socialization, this paper takes a social constructivist approach. Gender mainstreaming as a norm is difficult for EU to apply on their members, and thus was not widely discussed during accession negotiations. In the same time.

This paper examines whether membership in the European Union has contributed to democratic stability and integration in an ethnic diverse society. By studying the Latvian multicultural society, before and after membership in the EU, the author is looking for evidence of enhanced ethnic stability in the country brought through European integration. The author will analyze what the consequences have been, by adopting European regional policy, for a country that yet has to create a unified national identity. By analyzing different areas of the Latvian society, the author has concluded that the EU has played a small but yet not insignificant role for the Latvian domestic integration process..

According to the curriculum the Swedish school system should aim to let the democratic values permeate the school as a whole, and the school should assume each student's individual abilities in teaching. (Lpo -94) Democratic education is what the pragmatist John Dewey strongly encourages in his book Democracy and Education, which is why he stands for the theoretical framework of the concept of democracy in the school context. This study aims to examine whether and if so, the social roles in a classroom can affect students' opportunities for learning. The main research questions asked were:How can the social roles affect students' opportunities for learning in a classroom? How do students perceive that the social roles in the classroom affect their opportunities for learning? This has been investigated by two complementary perspectives.  Partly thru a student perspective to raise the students 'own experiences, and partly from an outside perspective to show how I, as an observer can see that social roles affect students' opportunities for learning.

The aim of this study about post-conflict economic, social and political reintegration of ex-combatants is to understand how such a process should be prepared for in order to help as many traumatized and sometimes destructive or disabled soldiers as possible to re-establish themselves as functioning civilians as well as preparing communities for their return. In order to do this I have focused on Africa and in particular the DDR-process of post war Sierra Leone. My study concludes that the relation between ex-combatants and civilians and the prospect of a positive future are crucial to a successful reintegration process..

Since the 1950s new laws on higher education have led to a ?mass education phenomenon? in Sweden. This has led to a surplus of people with a university degree measured against available positions on the labor market. As a result of that development it must be assumed that in this over qualified society it is not anymore the degree but additional factors which are decisive for getting a job. In this respect the importance of the class background for getting a jobb that is equal to once level of education shall beexamined.The research was carried out by means of a Quantitative Analysis based on data from anational database called Undersökningar av Levnadsförhållanden (Survey of LivingConditions).

This master thesis? purpose is to examine the role of Swedish universities in the prevention of extremism and terrorism. Depending on how the universities look upon their role in preventing extremism and promoting democracy among their students, extremism can either flourish or be restrained in the higher learning environment. An unclear standpoint against extremism from the universities side could make it possible for extremism to prosper at the universities, and students with extremist opinions may be radicalized and recruited to extremist organizations and terrorism. What are the universities standpoints in the matter whether universities should promote democracy and prevent and restrain extremism and the recruitment of students to extremist organizations? During the study I have mainly been using primary material in the shape of semi structured interviews with predecessors of four Swedish universities.

Sweden is divided according to an ethnic boundary, which divides people in "we" and "the others", "Swedes" and "immigrants" (Ålund, 2002). We believe this is due to the fact that society categorises immigrants all the time as a homogeneous group with fixed and static qualities, resulting in a situation where you cannot represent yourself as a person. Instead you are represented on the basis of your ethnic belonging. Young immigrants often grow up under other conditions and find themselves in more vulnerable situations than Swedish youths. The purpose with this paper was to investigate young people with different ethnic backgrounds, their thoughts and feelings about their identity, group belongingness and future.

An absolute majority of all Swedish children begins to attend preschool at some point between the age of one and five. The acclimatisation to preschool means a great change in every small child's life. They leave all that is well known, the parent and their home, to face a whole new environment with new kids and adults to get to know and learn to trust.The purpose of this study has been to find out how the professionals in preschool reflect upon the child's acclimatisation at preschool. More specifically we wanted answers to how the preschool teachers, in their work with the child's acclimatisation, relates to the today, in preschool, much debated relationship between the two perspectives care and pedagogy.This qualitative study is based on ten interviews with preschool teachers at different preschools in a small town in Sweden. The analysis is based on a presentation of the interview material compared with earlier research and the theoretical aspects we have chosen, which are Bronfenbrenners Ecological Systems Theory and the Object Relations Theory.While working with this paper it has come clear to us that there is no explicit or common definition of the concept of care within preschool, while there is a clear definition of the concept of pedagogy.