Over the last decades there has been a steady increase in the representation of women on the political arena. Despite of this there are still fewer women in comparison to men in political organs particularly at the municipal level. It is therefore of great importance to examine which different factors that tend to effect the female representation at this level. Doctor of philosophy at Umeå University Jessika Wide presented in a study from 2000 that the share of women in the municipal councils tended to depend upon cultural, socio-economical and political factors. Other scholars also mean that women have specific interests and therefore are more represented in some areas.

This study deals with some contested issues regarding prehistoric cultural development in Amazonia and the colonial impact on the native inhabitants of the area. It focuses on the relation between groups belonging the language families of Tupí and Gê, on one hand, and the different ecological zones that they inhabit, on the other. GIS mapping is used to visualise the distribution and movements of these groups in relation to ecology and the impact of European colonization. GIS is shown to be a useful methodology for analysing historical data derived from written sources and maps. The results of these analyses are discussed in the light of different theoretical perspectives.

Issue of study: The development of technology and society is closely linked. Mutual dependency and complex interrelationships make straightforward analysis of issues regarding the future of technology and society hard to perform. Therefore, the study addresses the question of how organizations should describe and analyze the interactions of technology and society in order to gain a better understanding of what the future may bring. Purpose: ? To develop a method for analysis of the future course of issues regarding technology and society in interaction.? To apply and test the developed method through a case study, where it is used to analyze the future of the Russian fuel market.

This thesis aims at; describing and creating an understanding of how Friskis&Svettis internationalization process, at the start-up in England, can be seen as entrepreneurial, to describe and analyze how various cultural factors can be identified and the impact they have on the internationalization process. The empirical data were obtained through two interviews and it appears that both the organizational culture and national cultural differences can be identified and that these affected the process. The results show that the entrepreneur is both a starting point and a key driver of the process and because of this it can be considered entrepreneurial..

Uppsatsens syfte är att studera lärande utifrån ett sociokulturellt perspektiv. Det som står i fokus är att finna och studera närmare faktorer och komponenter som enligt det sociokulturella perspektivet motverkar inlärning och skapandet av kunskap. För att genomföra studien har en kvalitativ fallstudie utförts, där fyra gymnasieelever har djupintervjuats individuellt. Dessa elever har valts ut med tanke på deras uppvisat svaga skolprestationer utifrån ett betygsperspektiv. Ett sociokulturellt teoretiskt ramverk har använts som ett genomgående teoretiskt betraktelsesätt för studien.

?Historiska Bakverk? is a project about different pastries from a historiacal perspective.The goal was to create illustrations and typography inspired by differentpastries, in order to communicate something about their history and what layunderneath. The project aimed to highlight, understand and acknowlage thepastries as an important part of our history and cultural heritage. Importantquestions I have dealt with throughout the project was in what way the pastriestell us about our history, how it has changed them through time. The result, aseries of posters for croissant, doughnut and pretzel, are a combination of boththeir history and my own experience of them.

The purpose of this study is to show what melancholy and irony in my poems express and what techniques that are used to accomplish these effects. Many theorists, among them Sigmund Freud and Julia Kristeva, characterize melancholy as an experience of loss, and therefore one of my questions is what kind of losses appear in my poetry. In search for an answer I analyze the texts from both a psychoanalytic and a sociological point of view. In the latter perspective I discuss the postmodern society using concepts from contemporary thinkers like Zygmunt Bauman, Fredric Jameson and Jean Baudrillard. Finally, I also examine if melancholy has an influence on the form of the poems.

Care and solicitude about Swedish documentary heritage has varied substantially throughout the years. The main purpose of this essay has been to investigate what efforts have been made to preserve rare book collections at public libraries. These cultural policies have been studied from both a national as well as local perspective. What we have tried to explore can be condensed into three questions: What national initiatives have been taken in the past century to preserve the municipal documentary heritage?What initiatives have been taken in the past century to preserve thedocumentary heritage of what is presently the municipality of Jönköping? What value do rare book collections at public libraries represent? The results indicate few national efforts were initially made to preserve rare book collections in the timeframe we studied.

The aim of this master's thesis is to study how the design of the music library space affects how it is used and its role as an arena for culture. This is done in form of a case study of Library 10 in Helsinki, a public library branch that specializes in music and information technology. The backdrop to the study is the changing context for cultural activity in the information society and the role of public libraries as public space and meeting place. By analyzing the distribution of space in the library, the distribution of functions and artefacts and the spatial use of the room, I interpret the ways in which this distributional logic produces a unique place for music and culture. I discuss the music library design in a space and place perspective, utilizing theoretical tools from cultural geography and the space theories of Henri Lefebvre.

It is a qualitative study that describes and analyzes how professionals deal with social issues of inclusiveness and ethics in the investigation of cases involving interventions for adolescents. The focus is on the strategies that staff in social services expressed in terms of obstacles and opportunities for working participatively and especially when it comes to dealing with ethical dilemmas that may arise.    The method used was qualitative research interviews. Five social workers from two different municipalities were interviewed and the material is analyzed on the basis of socio-cultural theory and organizational theory. Themes that emerged were participation, ethics, discretion and flexibility, collaboration, organization, skills and time. The main obstacles that have emerged in the study are that those who work in social services have had been difficulties to fully create participation due to various factors.

The study explores different aspects of how a social organization is created and maintained in the space between the institution and the individual. Based on fieldwork, participant observation and individual interviews in the housing estate of Hageby, Norrköping, this ethnographic study examines how and why the organization ?Ditt Nya Hageby? was created, as well as the unanimity between the purpose of the organization and the engagement of the members. Two projects within the organization are especially examined, along with the roles of the two members behind them. The study presents three perspectives from which ?Ditt Nya Hageby? can be viewed.

This essay is from a student at the cultural science program in Karlstad University. The essay in Culture studies deals about the history use and about the cultural-historical values on buildings. The buildings are from a certain area called the neighborhood Almen and have in the past been threatening many times of demolition. The neighborhood Almen buildings survived a huge city fire back in the 19th century. Since then the buildings has been known as a memory and by the inhabitants and as the oldest part of the city left.

The purpose of this study is through a teacher perspective gain insight to the knowledge former Sodertorn teacher students possess of intercultural pedagogy and if they use it at work. The studies main perspective is the intercultural perspective, which has been the study's lead perspective. This study also made use out of a sociocultural perspective as it fits with the intercultural perspective and puts its mark in the study.This study has used interviews for data collection. Five former Sodertorn teacher students were interviewed, the interview participants work as teachers. These five teachers? experiences and statements were the focus of this study, the teachers had to demonstrate their intercultural skills and how they use these skills in their classroom.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate how parents? in multilingual families perceive language learning and reading for young children, and how their practice of this can be understood in relation to their language situation and cultural background.This study focuses on the interaction between parents? and young children in the light of the literacy practice. Important concepts such as early childhood literacy and family literacy have been used to study language, culture and literacy practice as phenomena that interact. The theoretical framework is a sociocultural perspective. Through qualitative interviews with seven parents?, it was found that multilingual families have a strong ambition for their children to learn all the languages spoken in the family.

This master?s thesis analyzes how cultural policy was problematized in three governmental policy areas; culturalpolicy for the free sector, education policy and popular education policy, during the social democrat Ragnar Edenman?s time (1957-67) as minister of ecclesiasticalaffairs. Earlier research has examined the policy for the free sector, concerning artist?s economic problems. This thesisadds an analysis of the other fields of policy, which were reformed in the 1960?s by the same ministry.