This Masters thesis is a study in library and information science, that examines literature as a tool for young people in their identity creation. Both scientists and teachers have found that teenagers like to identify themselves, when reading literature. The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine how youths construct their identity through reading in relation to the purpose that libraries and cultural politics have in youth novels. The starting point of this study is the sociologist Thomas Ziehe and his idea about identity try-out identitetsutprovning and Erving Goffmans dramaturgy perspective. The main question is: what is the relation between young peoples identity creation in youth novels and in their reality in proportion to the young peoples reading of youth literature and the science about their reading? The question is answered in three parts.

AbstractIn the heart of Paris, you will find Sweden?s only cultural center abroad. Since the early 70?s a wealth of cultural activities has been offered, and every year the center receives more than 100,000 visitors. The center is a branch of the Swedish Institute (Si), a public authority which promotes mutual relationships between Sweden and other countries through culture, education, science and business.

The first law in Sweden containing an act of legal deposit is from 1661. Since then the printing-houses are supposed to deliver all printed material to the Royal Library and other recipient libraries. Today, more and more information is solely published electronically. This material is not yet included in the law of legal deposit. In a similar way as our printed cultural heritage is saved for posterity our electronic cultural heritage has to be saved.

The Swedish Institute is a public agency promoting Swedish interest, national image and confidence around the world. This work attempts to investigate how communication and a process over time influences and effects public diplomacy. The analytic discussion is based on a single case study research of this Institute representing ideas in the international science field of public diplomacy. The theoretical ideas of public diplomacy are placed in a theoretical perspective of social constructivism. The method is qualitative, with excerpts taken from interviews, literature, newspapers, articles, state public reports and social media.

With the political situation that prevails in the world, the need for contingency planning for the ecclesiastical heritage has become actualized with the aim of protecting the churches and their assets in war and armed conflicts. In accordance with Kulturmilj?lagen (SFS 1988:950) chapter 4 ? 15a, the Church of Sweden and its organizational parts are responsible for ensuring that contingency plans for the ecclesiastical heritage are established. In the legal statutes, it is not clear how this is to be carried out, who is responsible for all practical aspects or what is to be protected, something that creates gaps of knowledge regarding logistics, roles and selection. This means that there is currently a lack of principles and practice around the protection of the ecclesiastical cultural heritage, as contingency planning for cultural heritage is a fairly new phenomenon that has not been practiced in times of peace.

Who is integrating school-holiday home? It is for the teachers, recreational pedagogue or the students? How do the students think and act to keep the different activities apart?My purpose was to study how children sort the day between school and recreational home interactions. The issues were: How do they distinguish between the different activities during the day?  See the students their stay after school program as part of the school day? Who decides whether you have to go to school, and whether you have to go to after school program? And do you really have to?I have interviewed six students at an elementary school, based from a phenomenographic perspective, I've used myself of issues that students have been able to respond from a school perspective and after-school perspective. My interview questions have been comparative in nature, where the same question have given different answers depending on whether the question focused on school or the afterschool program.

The aim of this paper was to examine the specific experience of being bicultural, what ackulturation strategy the person utilized and what influenced the use of this strategy. The findings were analyzed with the help of Pierre Bourdieu?s concepts of habitus and cultural capital. The empirical data was collected through qualitative interviews with four women of Chilean background, who either were born in or had been living in Sweden since childhood. The results of the interviews showed that all the respondents predominantly utilized the integration strategy, meaning that they participated in and felt a connection to both the Swedish and Chilean culture.

The purpose of this study was to examine social workers working process in social assistance with focus on the child´s perspective. We were interested in learning about the existence of variations in approach and attitude between two municipalities. Question to be answered about what methods and approaches used by social workers to include the child´s perspective in the process of social assistance. Another question to be answered about what the manner in which social workers took into account the child´s perspective when the families apply for social assistance in relation to the operations and requirement. To fulfill the purpose, qualitative methods were used.

This Master Thesis aims to study and discuss the occurence of three concepts in some influential cultural policy documents which includes the UNESCO public library manifesto, the Swedish libraries act, the Swedish cultural policy objectives, and a study from the mid nineties which deals with the cultural policy. The questions asked are: -Do the documents mention democracy? In what way? -Do the documents mention the public sphere? In what way? -Do the documents mention information? In what way? -How can we understand the content of the documents through relevant theories about democracy, the public sphere and information? Theories about the information society are used, as well as theories from Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Schiller and Robert Dahl. The way of method is document studies and abduktion, with influences from hermeneutic theory. The analysis deals with the documents through these concepts: democracy, the public sphere and information and puts forward the content, or lack of content, about democracy in the analysed material.

This thesis discusses the representation of bodies in todays non-fiction television in Sweden. I have chosen to focus on deviant bodies (sexual, deformed or unhealthy) on display in reality-shows and documentaries on SVT, TV4 but especially on the commercial channels TV3 and Kanal5. Also discussed are the viewers emotional and bodily reactions. Altough these shows are different from one another in many respects, I argue that there is also a common thread between them. From a sociological and cultural perspective, and with help of some historical examples, I try to illustrate how we view these shows and what their function is.

It is clear that media advertising is one of the crucial marketing tools for companies in order to promote their products and services. As we are moving towards more and more economic integration, both on a regional and global scale, the question about standardisation of media advertising has become increasingly important and is nowadays subject to discussion in most international companies. This thesis deals with the issue of standardisation in a region where the process of political, legal and especially economic integration is taking its course, but where cultural and linguistic diversity is still a remaining fact: Europe. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the potential gains from a standardised advertising approach but also to identify its limitations. Especially on a market place like Europe, with its diverse cultural and linguistic background, a fully standardised approach might be difficult to implement.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vilken innebörd begreppet ?kulturkompetens? ges i litteraturen samt utifrån detta problematisera dess applicering på praktiken. Begreppet ?kulturkompetens? saknar en enhetlig definition, något som initierat skrivandet av denna uppsats. Studien bygger på en litteraturstudie i form av en kvalitativ textanalys.

Popular culture is a phenomenon of growing importance in the society today. Children and teenagers are increasingly using popular culture in their everyday life to reflect and answer questions about their identities and the meaning of life. Swedish primary and upper secondary schools are expected to prepare their students for adulthood and to provide them with tools to explain understand and problematize contemporary society. From this perspective it is relevant to question whether the schools achieve this and whether the instruction given there represents the contemporary society. For the purpose of knowing more about how popular culture is perceived and dealt with in the Swedish education system, this study examines how eight textbooks in Religious Education (RE) and the national curriculum for upper secondary school discuss and treat popular culture.  The study focuses on when and in what ways the textbooks mention popular culture and if the curriculum provides any supportive base for including popular culture in religious education.

We started out the study with a preconception of culture as something that creates difference between groups of people, which had been verified by our prior research. We also had a sense of culture as a polysemous term. Our assumption is also that there is an opinion within social work practice that Swedish social workers are faced with a cultural barrier when encountering immigrant clients.In this study our aim is to examine constructions of the terms cultural competence and culture. Constructions of the terms ethnicity and ethnic diversity are also observed, although the main reason for this is to show what relation these terms have to the terms cultural competence and culture, and how they may give each other meaning, according to the theory of social construction. In addition to constructions, we also aim to bring out discourses around the terms, upon which we will create a discussion about power and dominance informed by post-colonial theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA).

In subsequent to Post-colonialism the African nations have dilated into different political directions. While some nations have established well-functioning democracies, others are still under authoritarian regimes. The aim of this thesis is to examine if civil society has an impact on democratic development in West Africa. Therefore the theoretical starting point is Putnam?s theory of social capital, but this study will also examine other possible causal explanations for democratic transition.This study will be based on a comparative analysis of Ghana and Guinea.