In 1998 the Swedish Socialist Government initiated a project in order to promote economic growth and to end the discriminating social and ethnic segregation in the greater city regions of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. One of the goals of the project was and still is to promote political participation in 24 of the poorest areas of the three cities. In a quantitative analysis I evaluate whether or not the project so far has been successful in promoting a specific part of political participation, i.e. electoral participation in communal elections. The results of the 24 poor city areas are compared with a group of 14 likewise poor city areas of major swedish cities.According to my hypothesis, general improvements of the socio-economic status of poor city areas ought to generate positive effects on electoral participation in communal elections.

Symbolic resources transform in to social power and material resources through the educational system. This entails that all students should have equal access to it.The essay compares Swedish didactics in ?immigrant? and ?white? schools, all situated in socio-economically underprivileged areas, analysing interviews with eight Swedish teachers about their didactics regarding restricted and elaborated language code.Understanding teacher?s work in the class room requires attention to the intersections between race and class, and of both to the distribution of symbolic resources in general.The essay finds that the practice of the? immigrant? school teachers differs from the ?white? school teachers?. The former are active, providing intellectual tools, scaffolding and driving force while the later choose a more passive attitude, letting students decide for themselves what to do and what goals to reach. Consequently ?white? schools allow the reproduction of unequal distribution of symbolic resources while practice in immigrant schools aim to compensate for disadvantages.Practice seems to win legitimacy by different sets of conceptualisations.

This pilot study investigates possible treatment effects and participants' experience in an internet-based treatment of specicfic phobia. Changes in self-reported phobic fear were examined in a series of case studies and changes in attitudes towards avoidance and approach strategies were examined at group level. Seventeen DSM-IV diagnosed patients with specific phobia participated and 10 out of these completed the treatment.The results show that 80 % of the completing participants were clinically improved after the treatment and that the completing participants were significantly more negative towards avoidance strategies after the treatment. The evaluation of the disposition and user-friendliness of the treatment showed that the participants' overall view of the treatment was positive. The main advantage perceived was the flexible nature of the treatment, while the main disadvantages were the high level of motivation and discipline required from the participants.

This project aims to obtain a deeper understanding of what it is like to be young today, and of how young people experience their lives. Identifying and uncovering the process of meaning constitution concerning young people's thoughts and feelings within each subjective individual, and their visions about the future as well as how they experience relations to other people in their surrounding, was achieved with a phenomenological approach. The participants were asked to write a self-report in answer to a carefully formulated question.The received reports were analysed according to the method of Meaning Constitution Analysis and Sphinx Lexica. The result showed that young people's lives are both complex and unique. They rather write about friends than family and write less about the future than we first assumed.

This phenomenological study explores the mental health problems of asylum- seeking children in Sweden and highlights possible ways of meeting their needs. Open interviews with 13 clinically experienced psychologists were conducted.The results of the analysis suggest that experiences of trauma and separation, the child's developmental level, parental functioning and family dynamics contribute to the mental health problems of asylum- seeking children. When meeting these children the psychologists continuously face ethical dilemmas since the asylum-seeking process seems to aggravate the problems as well as complicate the use of traditional interventions. Promoting structure and activity, normalizing symptoms, educating about trauma and crisis, sharing and accepting anxieties and sometimes thoroughly working through traumatic experiences are treatment strategies found clinically useful. Systematic follow-up studies are needed to decide the effects of these interventions..

Trots ett väldokumenterat samband mellan vårdpersonalens trivsel och välmåendet hos både personal och patienter inom vården, råder det brist på studier av arbetsklimatet inom psykiatrin. Syftet med denna studie var att utforska sambandet mellan arbetsklimatet och personalens arbetstrivsel inom slutenpsykiatrin, samt att se om det fanns skillnader i upplevt arbetsklimat mellan olika yrkesgrupper. För detta ändamål utformades en enkät som delades ut till personal på 11 avdelningar med varierande antal anställda inom slutenpsykiatrin i Stockholms Läns Landsting, vilket resulterade i 154 undersökningsdeltagare. Resultatet visade att upplevd vårdkvalitet var den starkaste prediktorn för arbetstrivsel för hela gruppen, att det fanns skillnader i arbetsklimat mellan de olika yrkesgrupperna samt att olika arbetsklimatsfaktorer tycktes vara av varierande betydelse för de olika gruppernas arbetstrivsel. Detta bekräftar betydelsen av personalens upplevelse av vårdkvaliteten samt framhäver vikten av att ta hänsyn till variation mellan olika yrkesgrupper i framtida studier av arbetsklimat..

The Swedish stock-market gives investors an opportunity to benefit from the global growth while financing companies invests and contributes to a socio-economic development. Parallel to the ownership of the funds also follows a responsibility as companies in the funds affect society and the environment. The growth of savings in funds, combined with an increased focus on sustainability has developed SRI (socially responsible investment). Therefore it is interesting to examine whether responsibility is an exception, which only concerns SRI-funds or a general principle, which includes the whole Swedish stock-market.The results of the survey makes it clear that all the Swedish major banks actively works to integrate sustainability within the respective bank's business to achieve a more sustainable financial system. Thus concludes the investigation that responsible investments are a general principle on the Swedish mutual stock-market.How responsibility is integrated in fund management differ between the banks.

The purpose of this thesis was to study descriptions of companies on their webpages on the Internet. This was performed from a socialconstructionist point of view with focus being on subject positionings and gender. A critical discourse analysis was carried out on two texts from the webpages of two organizations on the Internet. Using the three dimensional model for critical discourse analysis by Fairclough, the discourses and subject positionings that the texts included could be revealed. The purpose of this thesis was also to point out the importance of the use of language in recruiting personnel and to hopefully encourage organizations to put effort into text production to avoid discrimination.

Uppsatsens syfte är att utreda hur svenska telemarketingföretag och deras uppdragsgivare påverkas av NIX-Telefon. Genom fallstudier på företag inom branschen kommer vi att generera hypoteser gällande branschen i allmänhet. Vår undersökning utgår från hermeneutiken och har en induktiv ansats. Dess utformning är intensiv och vi har gjort personliga intervjuer med två telemarktingföretag, en uppdragsgivare, NIX-Telefon samt en branschorganisation. Vår teoretiska referensram består av teorier inom marknadsföring och psykologi, samt ett par undersökningar om ett register i USA som liknar NIX-Telefon.

The purpose of this study was to examine some teachers thought about the educational indoor environment in free preschool. With free preschool this study means a Swedish specially adapted to parents/adults and their children and for a typical type of children who are 0-5 years old. Questions to the study were:? How do some teachers in free preschool perceive that they are adapting the preschool indoors environment to children and learning?? How do some teachers in free preschool perceive that they are adapting the preschool indoors environment to children and learning to attract children to the pedagogical environment?In this study I used qualitative methods and interviewed five teachers and preschool indoor environment is observed. I applied the socio cultural perspective to my study.

The aim of the study is to examine how different factors,such as views on how knowledge is produced and howlearning takes place, effect the way an academic librarymanages space. This is done by looking into how a specificlibrary, namely Library & Learning Resources (LLR) at theUniversity of Borås, by re-planning the building?s structure,design and functions, can support the students? differentstudying habits. The analysis is performed by using a theoreticalperspective built by a model first created by thearchitect Daniel Koch. The model is designed to look uponhow space produces meaning and knowledge.

Uppsatsens huvudsakliga syfte är att utforska och kartlägga begreppet gamification. Syftet operationaliseras i tre frågeställningar. Vad finns det för likheter respektive skillnader i synen på Gamification mellan ett antal yrkesverksamma inom Gamification? Hur ser yrkesverksamma med olika bakgrunder inom psykologi, pedagogik och marknadsföring på framtiden för Gamification och dess användningsområde? Vilka för- och nackdelar kan finnas med Gamification? Uppsatsen teoretiska utgångspunkter omfattar de psykologiska krafterna bakom spel som flow och motivation, teorier om det praktiska användandet av gamification och teorier om Generation Y. För att samla empiri har kvalitativ metod använts i form av semistrukturerade explorativa intervjuer där yrkesverksamma inom gamification har intervjuats.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether the reading promotion project called ?A book?s all sides?, together with the activities of the book-event, can stimulate young people?s reading. The research questions are: How do the project leaders plan and organize activities for the book-event? How do the young people respond to the activities at the book-event? Do the young people get interested in the book which is presented at the book-event? Which connections between Vygotskij?s theory and the activities can be found in the book-event? The theoretical approach is based on Lev Vygotskij?s socio-cultural theory. To answer my research questions I have implemented four qualitative interviews and two interviews with the adult activity leaders and observed a book-event in the classroom.

Uppsatsen bygger på begreppet ?Positive Deviance? och dess förändringsmetoder till att positivt förändra individers tillvägagångssätt och prestationer på arbetsplatsen. Metoderna förespråkar att befintliga positiva avvikares arbetssätt ska identifieras, analyseras och appliceras på resten av individerna i samma grupp via en ?bottom-up? process. Det med avsikten att skapa en bestående och lönsammare lösning som annars vanliga konventionella förändringsmetoder inte brukar lyckas åstadkomma.Med en abduktiv ansats och en kvalitativ fallstudie som innefattar sex semi-strukturerade intervjuer med ledare på ett kundserviceföretag så har flera likheter liksom skillnader upptäckts gentemot förespråkade förändringsmetoder.

IKEA HaparandaTornio employ some two-hundred people in its furniture retail store.Keeping track of staff statistics and employee information has previously been achievedthrough the use of a basic Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet. The store?s human resourcesdepartment requested an upgrade to this system with the hope of speeding up andsimplifying the administrative process, as well as to make it easier to monitor HR-relatedtarget statistics. The following report documents the development process of that upgrade ascarried out by the author. The project draws on research in usability design and cognitivepsychology to develop a user-friendly interface.