Deliberative democracy theory holds that democracy is about active partaking on formal and informal arenas in the public sphere where fairly equal citizens can obtain knowledge, discuss, evaluate and affect the political agenda before decisions are made.In line with the deliberative vision of online deliberation social media such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Twingly offer such formal and informal arenas where people can obtain knowledge and interact with other people, and politicians.The Swedish EU-Presidency was the first EU-presidency to make use of social media and it was the first time the Swedish Government Offices used other social media than email and chat features.This thesis will examine the Swedish EU-Presidency?s ambitions of using social media as well as the actual use of social media on the Swedish EU-Presidency website in the light of deliberative democracy theory.The aim of this thesis is, through a case study, to analyze the Swedish EU-Presidency?s use of social media in the light of deliberative democracy theory..

AbstractMy study is based on that I think there is a problem at the Handicraft program for hairdressers where I currently work as a hairdresser teacher. I believe that there are clear objectives and a wide range of courses focusing in craft knowledge, but the social competence goals are unclear and there are no courses on the subject. Since I have 13 years hairdressing experience and know roughly what it requires, I wonder where and how the teaching of social skills is performed at the Handicraft program for hairdressersThe purpose of this study is therefore to find out how some of my colleagues perceive the teaching of social skills. The issues I have focused on are what these teachers believe that social skills are, how they perceive their teaching of it and when they believe that teaching really should be. There is not much literature on this subject because it is a relatively unexplored area. I have therefore concentrated on literature dealing with social skills in general, and theses and essays dealing with the quality of hairdressing education. I have chosen to make a qualitative interview study. The objectives related to social skills can be incorporated in the teaching of many subjects; I chose to interview two core-subject teachers and four vocational teachers. The interviews have been based on respondents' own interpretations of social skills. They have been individual interviews of about 30 minutes. My results show that most teachers believe that social competence is about a good meeting between people and to coping with different situations in a good way.

The purpose of this research is to examine some historical aspects of Robert Putnam?s thesisabout voluntary associations and social capital. According to a micro perspective theory ofsocial capital the trust and reciprocity required and created by associations is important toexplain the disparity between institutional performance and socioeconomic development ofsocieties. The social patterns governing this therefore set a precedent for the future. Using themutual sickness benefit societies in Sweden as variable for voluntary associations around1884, the essay discusses the possible links between social capital, associations and long termeconomic development.

Photography has long been of importance for humans in aspects of community, sharing and documenting. It has previously only existed in analogue format and with larger cameras. We have presently reached a new generation of cameras and photography. The new smaller compact cameras that are provided with most cellular phones take digital images of varying quality and accounts for a large part of photography. With the emergence of social media, photography and social interaction combined came photo applications with different features.

AbstractWorking with child and youth welfare is one of the most difficult challenges a social worker might face in the field of social work. Those who work with child and youth welfare are more exposed to stress and burnout than other comparable human service occupations. Research links the prevalence of stress and burnout to several key variables, such as demographics, working conditions and personality factors. In contrast, even though social workers in this field face many negative work-related problems they report a high job satisfaction. The aim of this study is to examine how uplifting and straining experiences affect social workers, who work with child and youth welfare, through the use of The Critical Incident Technique and interviews.

The purpose of this paper was to study the various organisations that work with drug abusing homeless people in Lund. We have tried to compare the possibilities they have to change the way the homeless people look at themselves. The organisations that we have studied are Aluma, Diakonicentralen, the shelter Piletorp and the social welfare office.The methods used to collect data were interviews with professionals and homeless people as well as reading literature. We have used Ted Goldberg's (docent in social work at the university in Stockholm) theory. He writes that you have to be a significant other to persons with deviant behaviour to be able to help them become a part of the society and to change the way they look at themselves.

The aim of this study is to through six interviews, with six experienced, social workers?, in three cities, understand how the child?s position in the Swedish child protective services? enquiries has change, and the factors behind it. The aim is also to compare if the social workers? view of the child?s position in the enquire has change accordingly to Socialstyrelsens intentions of BBIC. The theoretical approaches that was used is the new institutionalism, the Shier?s pathways to participation and the term discretion.

[Saknas].

The purpose with this essay is to describe how the principal, social worker and the teacher work to prevent bullying at school. The following questions have been discussed:Does the school have an action plan for bullying, and if so, what does it say? Who has the practical responsibility for making sure that the plan is followed, and how does that responsibility work? How is the responsibility divided between the different professions? Are the children in any way active in the planning of the work against bullying? What does the children think about who has the main responsibility for stopping bullying?The method I have used in the essay is individual interviews with principals, welfare officers and teachers from two schools.My results show that the schools have different ways of handling bullying, and different forms of cooperation within the staff. One school have active students in the work against bullying in the form of classmate support (kamratstödjare). The social worker is used in different ways in the work against bullying.

The aim of this study was to compare educational systems in Sweden, Czech Republic, Italy and Scotland. In the light of the Bologna Declaration signed in 1999, I was particularly interested in comparing social work educations in these four countries. Especially to clarify how far they have come to fulfill the goals of the common European educational policy.Central questions asked were: How do the educational systems look like in each of the four countries? How are the social work educations organized in each of them? In what ways do the social work educations differ? How can we explain such differences?Each country in this study represents a different welfare regime, and therefore I was challenged to find out if this has an impact on the implementation of the incentives of the Bologna Declaration. By studying various documents from the European Union, documents from each country and presentations of various social work programmes, I have come to the conclusion that the differences found mainly depends on the historical and socioeconomic traditions in the countries.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att ge en forskningsöversikt kring begreppet social sårbarhet i relation till naturkatastrofer i allmänhet. Sårbarhet i relation till naturkatastrofer har kartlagts och studerats vetenskapligt under en kortare period, medan social sårbarhet, som är en undergrupp till sårbarhetsfältet, har studerats förhållandevis lite. Genom att ta reda på vilka människor/grupper av människor som är mest utsatta för naturkatastrofer finns det en möjlighet för beslutsfattare att fatta välgrundade beslut om var förebyggande insatser bör göras, såväl som akuta insatser i händelse av en naturkatastrof. Tanken är att denna uppsats skall ligga till grund för en lokal studie 2009-2010 av social sårbarhet i en utvald kommun vid Vänerns strand. Vänern är som känt hotad av ökad översvämningsrisk i samband med klimatförändringar och vikten av att undersöka social sårbarhet där är stor.

The purpose of this study is to highlight the situation for youths leaving foster care and entering adult life. The study examines the services provided by the social service in the Stockholm area when a youth is leaving foster care, and if a recent change in the legislation has had any impact on the operating procedures of the social service. The study includes interviews with youths who recently left foster care, as well as information collected from social service offices through a survey, supplemented by interviews with practicing social workers. All the assembled data have been analyzed using Ecological Systems theory with focus on the child perspective and the term significant others. The study shows that the respondent youth have trouble identifying the formal ending with social services, as well as the support they received or were offered.

The purpose of this study is to identify and make attitudes among social workers towards homosexual and bisexual people visible, examine how these attitudes relate to their actions in their professional role and how these attitudes and actions can be understood by theories of heteronormativity and power. The study is a cross-sectional quantitative survey in the form of a questionnaire completed by social workers. The result shows that there are two groups among the social workers. One larger group that reproduces a norm of acceptance toward homosexual and bisexual people and one smaller that reproduces a heterosexual norm. This reproduction of heteronormativity increases the risk for homosexual and bisexual people to be made invisible and treated more negatively in contact with social workers, which in turn can lead to worse health among the clients..

The purpose of this essay was to examine the different aspects of motivational work with active heroin-using clients from a social workers point of view. The further purpose of this essay is to also examine what the advancements and discouraging factors in such a motivational work might be. To attain this purpose we focused on these following questions:What might motivational work with active heroin-using clients look like?According to the social worker, what factors constitutes for a beneficial progress in the engagement of motivational work with active heroin-using clients?According to the social worker, what constitutes for discouraging factors in the engagement of motivational work with active heroin-using clients?We chose to do a qualitative study by conducting separate interviews with six social workers working in a social services agency, all of whom are working with drug-addicted adults. We then analyzed the answers by using an abductive research strategy, testing the collected empirical data against our chosen theoretical perspectives.

The title of this study came about from the title of Robert Putnams book Bowling Alone, where Putnam mentions that less people are bowling in teams than before. Bowling is still a large leisure activity in the USA but people tend to bowl more and more in small groups and less in organized teams. This study deals with social capital and leisure time. Its aim is to find out if some Swedish people create social capital on their leisure time and also how do they spend their leisure time. Robert Putnams book Bowling Alone serves as main background material along with the work by Bo Rothstein.