This essay is included as a sub-study of a survey about child poverty, which the Department of Sociology at Uppsala University, the Ombudsman for Children and Gillbergska Stiftelsen (the Gillberg?s foundation) has been commissioned by Uppsala Town to implement. The intent of this essay is to investigate how three pre-school managers in the municipal preschool in Uppsala describe child poverty, how they see the preschool?s social responsibility and how they manage child poverty in their practical operation. The essay is a qualitative study and informants' responses has been analyzed and related to symbolic interactionism, the thesis theoretical basis.

The purpose of this essay is to contribute to an extensive understanding of former criminals and addicts. These people are facing several difficulties and possibilities during childhood, adolescence, the active period, the turning-point and life after the turning-point and we have examined what they might consist of.In this survey we have applied a qualitative method and collected our basis from interviews with former criminals and addicts. Criminality and addiction is a complex problem. There are many different factors which contribute to develop this. The most differential factors are; insecure childhood, low self-esteem and wrong kind of friends.

The goal of this qualitative essay is to approach the knowledge of people who commit crimes. From a development psychology point of view, questions relating to childhood ang growth are some of the important subjects we choose to discuss. Our purpose is also to reveal the linkage between criminal behavior and different theories of the above mentioned perspective. To bridge the gap between the general and the individual, our survey was based on profound interviews with four inmates in prison. This offer an opportunity to capture the individual´s inner thoughts, feelings and experience about the criminal action.

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.

This is a case study that explores the ways in which implemented university reforms have affected employees in the higher educational sector. Previous research within the research field has mainly focused on policy related consequences of the reforms. This is why a study that brings attention to the ways the reforms have affected employees is sorely needed.The aim with the study is to examine whether there is a discrepancy between formal changes and the ways the employees experience them. The study is based on interviews with 8 lecturers from two universities and the material is analyzed mainly through sociological neo-institutional theories, such as Richard Scott?s theory of the three pillars within an informal institution and Helmke and Levintskys theory of the relationship between formal and informal institutions.The results show that there is a discrepancy between the formal changes and the ways employees perceive them.

This is a case study that explores the ways in which implemented university reforms have affected employees in the higher educational sector. Previous research within the research field has mainly focused on policy related consequences of the reforms. This is why a study that brings attention to the ways the reforms have affected employees is sorely needed.The aim with the study is to examine whether there is a discrepancy between formal changes and the ways the employees experience them. The study is based on interviews with 8 lecturers from two universities and the material is analyzed mainly through sociological neo-institutional theories, such as Richard Scott?s theory of the three pillars within an informal institution and Helmke and Levintskys theory of the relationship between formal and informal institutions.The results show that there is a discrepancy between the formal changes and the ways employees perceive them.

The break up of the family unit leads to new living arrangements and significant changes for children. This can be an extremely upsetting experience for a child, especially if the child is old enough to understand what is happening. New living arrangements can effect a childs fundamental sense of security as well as having consequences later on in life. The object of this research paper was to examine how a group of seven people (children from split families who are now adults), interpreted and described their childhood in relation to the living arrangements they grew up with after the breakdown of the family unit. The main question areas we have examined are: How have the interviewee's living arrangements during childhood affected their understanding of themselves today? In what way has the adult's present day lifestyle been influenced by the split up of the family that they grew up with - using their own words? How do the children from split families describe and interpret concepts such as family and marriage, based on their own experiences? Our research was conducted with the help of seven people from split families who are now adults and who experienced different types of split family arrangements as a child ? permanent residence with mother/father or alternate living with both parents.

This study is an investigation of a sub community within the community of Hovsjö. The local government has financed a project in Hovsjö which is intended to bring about positive development. The prior object of this paper is to describe the project, it?s planning, it?s methods, it?s carrying through, and it?s goals. This study presents the district of Hovsjö in Södertälje.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to study various views of sponsorship in relation to public libraries as found within three cultural policy documents. The main objective is to discover which ideas are considered relevant in the partnership between the Swedish retail chain, Åhléns, and the children?s public library, ?Room for Children? (Rum för Barn). In 2005, Åhléns provided SEK3.14 million in sponsorship to ?Room for Children? at Kulturhuset in Stockholm.

The goal of this qualitative essay is to approach the knowledge of people who commit crimes. From a development psychology point of view, questions relating to childhood ang growth are some of the important subjects we choose to discuss. Our purpose is also to reveal the linkage between criminal behavior and different theories of the above mentioned perspective. To bridge the gap between the general and the individual, our survey was based on profound interviews with four inmates in prison. This offer an opportunity to capture the individual´s inner thoughts, feelings and experience about the criminal action.

Our study describes how much influence and importance Zlatan Ibrahimovic has on a part of Malmö called Rosengård where he himself grew up. We made interviews with 16 children in the ages of six to ten. The theoretic views applied in this study come from Robert Connell?s Notions of masculinity and William Corsaro?s Sociology of childhood. The questions we answer in this study are; if Zlatan has any influence on the children in Rosengård? How do children and media look at Zlatan and the myth that surrounds him? How does the picture of Zlatan Ibrahimovic get constructed amongst the children? How does hegemonic masculinity present itself amongst the peer-cultures of the children in Rosengård? Our study shows that Zlatan has no influence amongst the children we interviewed.

Over-investors ? a study of advanced language pupils in the upper secondary school.  The thesis examines the advanced study of Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) from a sociological point of view, inspired by Bourdieu.  Founded in official statistics and a specially designed survey its main findings can be said to be that it is mainly pupils with a high amount of acquired educational capital from higher social backgrounds who avail themselves of this opportunity, predominantly girls. The amount of inherited language and transnational capital in the family seems to be of particular importance for the pupils? choice of advanced language studies. French, German and Spanish are the predominant languages of study.

This is an ethnographically inspired study focusing on multilingualism in a Swedish preschool setting. The purpose of the study was to find out how the children perceived their multilingualism and how it was expressed by the children in the interaction with teachers and peers. The research questions were as follows: How is the multilingualism expressed in the day to day interaction in preschool? What significance does the daily interaction with peers and educators have for the children?s perceptions of their multilingualism? How do the children perceive their multilingualism and the value in their multilingual abilities?  To answer these question methods inspired by ethnographical studies were used, namely participant observation and semi-structured interviews with the children.   Theory was used from two areas; childhood sociology as theorized by Corsaro with the ideas of peer cultures and interpretive reproduction, and the sociology of language with the theory of collaborative empowerment as introduced and developed by Cummins. The children in the study were seen as social actors who are important here and now and who contribute to the development of society.   The study showed that the multiple languages were visible in the preschool, but that the Swedish language was upheld as the norm and the language of communication; no children were recorded playing in their ?home language? during interaction with other children.

The aim with this study is to through a research summary review experiences of growth and theparents caring ability among children who has grown up with parents having intellectual disabilites,and by empirical data illustrate how these persons today describe their childhood, their parentscaring ability and other cicumstances that have affected the growth. The results from the researchsummary are then to be compared with the results from the empirical data in purpose to reviewsimilarities and discrepancies.The study has a qualitative approach and it is based on foundings from earlier research andinterviews with four women whos mothers have intellectual disabilities.In the existing research of this issue there is a clear dichotomy between whether the researchershave focused on either the children or the parents. In both perspectives there are differentconceptions about whether a person with intellectual disabilities have the capacity to care for andraise a child, as there is about how the parents intellectual disaparment affects the child.The womens stories of the childhood are obviously unique, but they also have many experiencesin common, both among themselves as with what has been found in research. Children of parentswith intellectual disabilities have been classified as a risk group, wich has been shown by reversedroles for child and parent, lack of attachment to the parents and by insufficient care. Despite thedifficulties that the women have faced, they describe many parts of their lives in positive termstoday.There seems to be other influences in addition to the parents intellectual capacity that affect theesechildrens outcomes.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine children's communication and interaction during story time at the public library. The aim is also to examine how to develop the story time ? in terms of participation and equality ? at a specific library.Action research was used as a research strategy and participant observation, log, tutoring and interviews as methods to collect data. Since action research is done on the basis of practice, a significant collaboration with the librarian and the participant children is taking place within this study.Research from the fields of Library and Information Science, Education and Childhood Sociology form the interdisciplinary research area to which this study links. The theoretical framework consists of theory and concepts from the Socio-cultural Perspective, Poststrucuralist Feminism and Childhood Sociology.