A qualitative study is presented concerning children?s participation in the local decisionmaking in Swedish municipalities. The study also aims at finding out what are considered to be successful factors and obstacles connected to the implementation of children?s participation in local decision-making. The study contains a summary of the convention on the rights of the child, focusing on article 12, as well as previous research findings concerning children?s participation and factors enabling respectively hindering participation.

Many of us have grown up hearing or using words meant as insults or negative adjectives that were in fact names for social groups. Most of them have gone unquestioned in the mainstream consciousness, but the term Gay in the generally negative meaning has in the past years been given attention as offensive and homophobic, with debates emerging in response over whether or not this is true, particularly on the internet. It is the articles and forum threads from these debates that make out the empirical material for a qualitative study as I ask what these people?s thoughts are about this term and how it is perceived.After a qualitative coding and analysis of these texts, and interpretation of the results based on Erving Goffman?s theory of Phantom acceptance and stigma terms, Judith Butler?s theory of performativity, Ferdinand de Sassure?s theory of signifier and signified and how it connects to the community and Baudrillards theory of simulacra, this is the principal conclusion that I have drawn:For some of the people in this debate, the term Gay and its use is about homophobia and heterosexism, though mostly it?s not overt but a subconscious part of the continued dehumanization and stigmatization of homo- and bisexual people. This is a position I callThe socially focused skepticism.

In line with Sloan (1996) but on European data (STOXX 600) we are investigating whether stock prices reflect information about future earnings contained in the accrual and cash flow components. The extent to which current earnings performance persists into the future earnings performance is shown to depend on the relative magnitudes of the cash and accrual components of current earnings. Moreover, we still find a significant positive excess return (Jensen?s alpha and size-adjusted return) by replicating Sloans (1996) hedge portfolio by taking a long position in the stock of firms reporting relatively low levels of accruals and a short position in the stock of firms reporting relatively high levels of accruals. However, we find no evidence of negative excess returns for companies with relatively high accruals, this somewhat lower the total excess returns for all the portfolios.

Det finns en låg grad av mångfald i svenska börsbolagsstyrelser. Enligt omfattande studierförbättrar ökad mångfald en grupps kreativitet och prestation. Syftet med studien är attanalysera hur mångfaldsmåtten åldersspridning och kvinnonärvaro i svenskabörsbolagsstyrelser kan påverka vd:s position, eftersom grunden för ett framgångsriktjämställdhetsarbete ligger i ett företags ledningsgrupp med vd som främsta representant.Studien inkluderar samtliga kvinnor som varit vd:ar på börserna Nasdaq OMX Stockholmoch NGM Equity och en jämförelsegrupp av manliga vd:ar som haft förtroendeperioderunder liknande omständigheter som kvinnorna. Resultatet visar ett samband mellan kvinnligstyrelsenärvaro och förlängd förtroendeperiod för vd:ar, i synnerhet för de kvinnligavd:arna..

In line with Sloan (1996) but on European data (STOXX 600) we are investigating whether stock prices reflect information about future earnings contained in the accrual and cash flow components. The extent to which current earnings performance persists into the future earnings performance is shown to depend on the relative magnitudes of the cash and accrual components of current earnings. Moreover, we still find a significant positive excess return (Jensen?s alpha and size-adjusted return) by replicating Sloans (1996) hedge portfolio by taking a long position in the stock of firms reporting relatively low levels of accruals and a short position in the stock of firms reporting relatively high levels of accruals. However, we find no evidence of negative excess returns for companies with relatively high accruals, this somewhat lower the total excess returns for all the portfolios.

Title: Merkel with NSA on the telephoneThe aim of this essay is to study how Angela Merkel is being portrayed in context of NSAs surveillance in the Swedish newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet. The time period for the study is from the 24th of October to the 7th of November in the autumn of 2013. To concretize the aim three questions was formulated, how Angela Merkel was being portrayed in the material, how NSAs surveillance of Angela Merkel was being portrayed in the material and how different statements for various individuals in the material could affect the truth about the surveillance. The method chosen to study these questions was a discourse analysis, which also would contain parts of a linguistic analysis. The theories to support the method were Laclau & Mouffes discourse theory and Michel Foucault?s genealogical discourse analysis.

The purpose of our essay is to develop an understanding and an insight for the fashion industry. We want to examine what the creative industries can learn from the unique position that fashion hold in a field between commercialization and art. We used a theoretical ground to enlarge our understanding for the distinctive place that fashion holds. To gain further insight in the fashion industry we complete the theory with empirical facts. The empirical facts were collected through a qualitative method with deep-going interviews.

SammanfattningFörhållandena vid arbete i skördare är inte bra. Arbetspassen är ofta långa och föraren sitter ner hela tiden då maskinen används. Möjligheterna att ändra arbetsställnig är små. Människokroppen är skapt för att vara i rörelse, inte stilla. Långa perioder av stillasittande har en negativ inverkan på hälsan och kan i värsta fall leda till en förtidig död.

The purpose with this inquiry was to investigate why women do not advance to higher positions of leadership in a bank. I have interviewed five female employees in the company. The theoretical starting points I have used in this study are such as organization theory and leadership. There are four conceptions that obstructs women to develop for higher positions of leadership. There are conceptions that men ought to have better social network with other men than women.

AbstractTitle: Serial recall of two-voice lists: Words are not perceptually organized by voice.The present study examined how voice affects the perceptual grouping of words in short-term memory that are auditory presented. Three different voice-lists were used: single-voice, alternating-voice and split-voice. In single-voice lists all words were presented in the same voice. In alternating-voice lists words were presented alternately in a male and a female voice. Finally, in split-voice lists words were presented grouped four and four in a male and a female voice.

In Swedish sheep industry it is desired to have lambs slaughtered evenly distributed over the year. Swedish sheep are generally seasonal breeders with lambs born in the spring and slaughtered in the autumn. Some of the breeds, e.g. Swedish Finewool and Roslag sheep breeds have shown ability to lamb out of season. For increased knowledge on the possibilities to breed for out-of-season lambing in Swedish sheep breeds, the aim of this master thesis is to study the variation in frequency of two alleles in the MTNR1A gene in the three breeds; Gotland, Swedish Finewool, and Roslag sheep.

Abortion remains a contentious issue, which greatly raises ethical problems. This thesis examines the leading arguments in the Swedish abortion debate around the ? in terms of legislation ? critical years of 1938 and 1974. With Foucault's genealogical method, Butler's theories of gender as a social construction in relation to power and doxa, the study examines what the development of the argumentation says about the views on morality, the woman's body, life, individual and state? How has the arguments pro and against abortion changed over time and what does this say about the norms that guide and orientate the arguments? The most obvious change in argumentation is seen in the shift from an absolute moral and conservative position into an increasingly relativistic and liberal position, and this study will argue that this shift has its prerequisites in the changing status of the citizen and state.

Syftet med arbetet är att göra en jämförande undersökning av orsaker till betygsskillnader i ämnet engelska mellan två skolor. Undersökningen genomförs med fokus på skolor i två områden vars invånare uppvisar divergerande socioekonomisk och utbildningsmässig bakgrund. Arbetet inleds med en statistisk jämförelse av de två områdena på kommunal- och övergripande skolnivå. Därefter kommer en enkätundersökning med hela skolår nio på de respektive skolorna. Slutligen genomförs en intervju en lärarrepresentant för engelskan på skolorna.

På FOI i Linköping bedriver man bland annat forskning inom radarteknik. Som en del i denna forskning ingår mätning av radarsignaturer samt skydd mot signalsökande robotar. Vid mätning av radarsignatur används det egenframtagna radarsystemet Arken. Arken används bland annat för att mäta signaturen på fartyg. Ett problem är att vid ett givet mättillfälle så är inte fartygets position eller attityd känd.

Problembakgrund: I modets föränderliga värld, med nya trender varje säsong, kan det vara svårtför svenska modeföretag att skapa sig en långsiktig stark position på den svenskamodemarknaden. Tre företag aktiva på den svenska modemarknaden har valts ut för attundersöka hur de arbetar med identitet, profil och image för att behålla sin position påmarknaden.Problemformulering: Hur arbetar de utvalda svenska modeföretagen med identitet, profil ochimage?Syfte: Att bidra till förståelse om hur svenska modeföretag kan arbeta med sin identitet, profiloch image för att hålla sig kvar på marknaden.Metod: En kvalitativ studie har genomförts genom djupintervjuer med de tre svenskamodeföretagen Rodebjer, Brixtol och Uniforms for the dedicated. Parallellt har sekundärdataanalyserats för att bidra till en djupare förståelse och en objektivare syn på företagen.Resultat/Slutsats: Det är ett ständigt samspel mellan identitet, profil och image. Där identitet ärvem du är, profil vem du vill vara och image hur du uppfattas.