Social work is a social phenomenon, existing in most societies, that has given rise to a multitude of special organizations and professions. For that reason social work is dealing with a complex identity. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how social workers and the scientific discourse interpret the concept of social work. In addition to that the study intends to show similarities and differencies. The research process containes two studies, one based on qualitative interviews with five social workers and the other consisting a surway of academic litterature.

We have chosen to focus on the meaning of long-term income support dependency regarding health, goal setting and motivation for the recipient of economical aid. We have chosen to use semi structurized interviews to achieve our goal of reaching the clients experience of long-term income support dependency. The study consists of interviews of six clients whose answers have been analyzed through appliance of Kielhofner´s Model of human occupation, Scheff´s Shame in self and society.   Our results show regarding, 1) the factor health that long-term income support dependency may elevate the risk of illness and less experienced options of possibilities to act. 2) regarding the factor goal setting, that goals may be inefficiently used during social work with long-term income support dependent clients and may result in a disorganized relationship between client and social worker in the sense of making the parties pull in opposite direction. 3) regarding the factor motivation, that long-term income support dependency and the living with the emotion of shame elevates the risk of maintaining a negative image of oneself that limits the willpower to assimilate new knowledge and/or skills.

This study is set out to examine if there is any kind of influence between the EU and Swedish gender policy. More specific the Swedish efforts within the gender policy area, especially in the area of social policy and employment, during the Swedish presidency in the Council of Ministers 2001. And also to examine the impact of Europeanization in Swedish gender policy. We have decided to delimit our study to care of elderly and children when it comes to the area of social policy. We are using a descriptive, examining qualitative method.

This study focuses on the influence a user may have over his or her welfare service, personal assistance. A county, an assistance firm and a user cooperative are compared with the thesis that the organisation that surrounds the users shapes the possibilities the user have to influence his or her personal assistance. There are questions that try to answer if there are outspoken social goals within each organisation. Questions regarding influence of the user when she or he is choosing the assistance provider and the users possibility to influence and his or her power to decide who and when anyone works as an assistant are asked..

The purpose of this paper is to give a view of how violence and victims has been portrayed in novels. I have chosen 6 books where the main character is a child who has been exposed to physical, mental and/or sexual violence. I have asked questions to the book and I have tried to find patterns in the child's strategy to cope with violence and how the violence is described. I have also written two chapters about earlier studies of this field and theoretical standpoints. The main perspective I present is the salutogenese perspective and how people create meaningfulness in their lives.The children in the books have different ways to handle their situations.

The aim of this essay was to examine the impact that parents drug abuse have on their children´s chances and possibilities while growing up. This study is done by investigating literature written by acknowledged authors and experts in this field. The following questions were asked:How does the literature describe the influence of parent´s drug abuse on their child´s ability to develop and learn?Which factors does the literature distinguish as determining factors on the child´s ability to resist and recover, from a childhood with drug abusing parents?The result of this essay showed that having drug abusing parents constitute different types of risks when it comes to the child´s ability to develop and learn. How the child is able to cope with it´s parents drug abuse is determined by several factors such as, the situation in the family, the child´s personality and how people in the child´s surrounding react on the child´s needs..

In this essay we aimed to find how economic scarcity among children and youth presents itself in school, according to how school staff experience it. We have conducted interviews with student welfare staff to hear their experiences of this subject and how the schools try to help these pupils. We have used interpretative phenomenology as a base for our work. We have also used some of this traditions most important notions along with notions of Erving Goffman and Sara Ahmed during our processing off the material.  With help from these, we report our most interesting results. We have seen that a lack of resources exists among youth today and that everyone not has easy access to things many of us might take for granted.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the origin of generalized trust. We compare existing theories on trust to determine what approach is more fruitful in explaining the prevalence, or absence, of trust. Our conviction is that trust should be viewed as an interaction, rather than a disposition or a rational choice. The sample is based on the countries of the OECD. In total, five different hypotheses are tested: i) that generalized trust is created by equal distribution of income, ii) that generalized trust is created through monitoring of the state, iii) that generalized trust is created through rule by law; iv) that generalized trust is created when the welfare apparatus is guided by principles of universalism; or iv) that generalized trust is created when the state integrates trust networks.

Castration of dogs holds many reasons and opinions, therefore methods, traditions and rea-sons vary. The approaches have during time changed from mostly surgical castrations to also including hormonal treatments. Castration is used to control the dog's reproductive abilities, for medical reasons and to possibly rectify problems of behavioral nature. How common a particular method of castration is in a country is highly dependent on the country's traditions. In Sweden it is most common with castration for medical reasons, such as possible elimina-tion of diseases, for example, benign colorectal tumors.

The aim of this research paper was to examine the help required by refugee children with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In addition to this, we also examined the help the refugee children are currently receiving. We have examined this from the perspective of the theory of the ecology of human development. The method we used was qualitative and we conducted eleven profound interviews with professionals working with the target group in question. The essential questions were; which needs, according to the professionals, do refugee children with PTSD have, what characterises the professional's work to help the children and what possibilities and obstacles there are in giving the children optimal help.The results strongly conclude that it is important for the children's development to have at least one supportive adult in their surrounding, a positive experience at school and during leisure activities.

The main purpose of this paper was to attempt to explain and to understand the causes of various types of eating disorders.The intention of the essay was to examine who are the different parties acting in this particular field that through research or other kinds of work, come to meet individuals that suffer from some kind of eating disorder. The aim was to explore the different concepts used within this specific field, and what main theories and viewpoints that exist within it.The methods used in the study were two. The essay was based mainly on a literature review, and in order to further highlight the different perspectives a number of qualitative interviews were conducted in addition to this. These methods aimed to give an overview of the different perspectives and standpoints that exist within the field of eating disorders.The conclusions drawn in this study were several. The results showed a relative consensus regarding the main causes for developing eating disorders.

Despite the fact that men dominate substance abuse research and that most programs to target substance abuse therefore are developed by and for men, very little is known about the fact that substance abusing men can also be parents. Mothers are up until today regarded as the most important parent even though society is changing and fathers are taken a more active part in childrearing. The average father today still spends significantly less time with his children than the average mother does and marginalised drug abusing fathers often disappear from their families altogether. The goal and purpose of this paper has been that through a qualitative analyses of written sources and qualitative interviews with healthcare professionals and social workers recognise how marginalised drug abusing fathers interests of taking part in their children's lives are met by healthcare, treatment and child protection agencies and how we can understand marginalised fathering as an extension of how we view ordinary fathering. I wanted to examine if there are any specific actions taken in involving these men as fathers and how we can understand their situation.

During the 21st century, Society has again begun to focus its attention on working class literature and on issues related to social class. In the media contemporary working class literature is often mentioned as a distinct phenomenon. I my view, the meaning of this phenomenon have not been adequately formulated. The aim of this Master?s Thesis is to reconstruct, using a discourse oriented text analysis, a picture of how the contemporary working class literature is described in today?s society.

The aim of this essay was to obtain an understanding about company owners thinking about the connection between having an own company, and the risks for an alcoholic abuse. The risk factor I was researching was stress, alcoholic culture, accessibility and rehabilitation.I have interviewed five owners of small companies, two women and three men, which represents four different kinds of branches. The theories I used in analysing the empirical findings where the theories of psychosocial work environment of Lazarus, Karaseks demand/control model, epidemiology- and culture perspective.I have found that the main stress factors for company owners where the economical stress and great load of work. The stress was also related to the fact that company owners of small companies often were alone with all the responsibility and problems.Women did not use alcohol very often as a tool to reduce stress. If individuals were using alcohol to reduce their stress, it also had to deal with their ability of coping and also what channels they had for coping..

The Vaxholm conflict was initiated when the Swedish Trade Union for Construction Workers shut down a construction site in order to prevent a Latvian construction company to build a school after the two parties had failed to agree upon a collective agreement in compliance with Swedish regulations. An emotional public debate followed that resulted in a discussion of the proposal for the Services Directive of the EU, based upon the country-of-origin principle. In this thesis we will analyze whether the country-of-origin principle or the country-of-destination principle is best suited to capture the gains-of-trade that the common market hoards and improve welfare within the EU. We conclude that the country-of-origin principle is the more apt of the two, though it leads to some short-run costs such as structural unemployment. But these will be more than outweighed by the gains in aggregate welfare for the EU in the long run..