Public opinion has increasingly become a political force in the European integration process. At present, it appears that the people?s attitude towards the European integration is relatively skeptical. How can we expect that the attitude towards European integration will evolve in the future? This paper tests the extent to which diffusion theory can serve as a model to explain the development of attitudes to European integration policy in Sweden from 1999 until 2009.

This thesis uses statistical methods to investigate if political appointees working for the Swedish government are good representatives for the members of the ruling party. This is a relevant question since the number of political appointees and the political fields in which they are employed have increased. Some say that this is a sign of presidentialism, which in this context means that the prime minister and his cabinet are becoming more independent from parliament and supporting party. The research is done by comparing the political appointees with an select elite of party members regards to socioeconomic background, which interest that are promoted in society and ideology. The consequences of differences on these characteristics between political appointees and the party elite could be that some interest in society are wrongly overrepresented while others are wrongly underrepresented by the unelected political appointees.

The aim of this essay is to explore the lived citizenship and its ideal. First, the form and expression of citizenship practice and ideal is explored through a qualitative interwiev study of ten citizens in the southern suburbs of Stockholm. The perception and expectations of the nature of citizenship, presented by the informants, is then compared to their citizen ideal, as well as to the ideal presented and promoted by the Swedish government. The point of departure is theory of democracy. The essay calls attention to an observed lack of empirical studies in the field of deliberative theory of democracy as well as studies that more broadly bring the theory down to empirical earth.

AbstractBachelor essay in Pedagogy by Johan Lidén &Kristian Sagfors, 2011."Genus i gymnasieskolan: En oengagerande fråga?".Supervisor: Zeki YalcinGender and gender equality in our school system has throughout the years become a well researched subject, however most of that research has focused on the lower levels of compulsory school. The upper secondary school has not gotten the same attention.We have chosen to explore how social science teachers in upper secondary school treat the subject of gender and gender equality, what strategies they apply in the classroom and how their pupils respond to the subject.We wanted to get access to their classrooms so we could do an ethnographical study to find the answers to how their lessons were planned and executed, if different teachers made different didactic choices depending on the orientation of the class. As our work progressed we ran in to an interesting problem which ultimately made us rethink the purpose of this paper.In our pursuit of respondents we contacted many schools by e-mail and later visited the schools to find participants. This proved difficult as we were met with a wall of silence and lack of interest.

15th of December 2005 was a historical day for the Iraqi people when they could vote for the first time in a free referendum for the draft of the new constitution. The result showed that 79% accepted it. The Iraqi constitution has been criticized by many for its Islamic ascendancy. By giving Islam the role as the source for legislation, will make the situation worse for the Iraqi women, so it has been said.My aim with this Master thesis is not to evaluate weather or not Islam as a religion will undermine women's roll in the society. My ambition is rather to examine the constitution in order to see which kind of theory of citizenship it is inspired from and how will it affect the situation of the Iraqi women.

This essay reflects upon how recruiters working at a recruitment-agency interpret their gender equality plan and their understanding of the term gender equality. This was done by semi-structured interviews with five recruiters. Through theories concerning the gender system, organization theory with a gender perspective and the doing-gender-perspective we have come to the conclusion that the employees of the company lack a coherent interpretation of gender equality. Concerning the gender equality plan there were diverse understandings of its meaning and the application of the plan is partly insufficient. As a recruitment agency there are a number of specific difficulties related to working towards gender equality.

The scarcity of qualified forest machine operators as well as the increased competition for competent machine operators among others from the mining industry in Norrland, were the reasons to investigate what attracts and what deters active and potential forest machine operators to the occupation. An interview study was conducted among four groups with four persons in each group. The groups were students in year 1 and 3 respectively at a forestry school at upper secondary school level as well as employees of a forest company and employees of contractors. The majority of all respondents were of the opinion that their interests in machines had been important for the choice of occupation. But for the active machine operators both the interest in the forest and their interest for machines have had importance for choosing this occupation.

Aim: The aim of this study is to analyse the possible motives behind the actions of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in relation to the conflict in Syria. The background of this aim is the Arab Spring and the protests and violence that have followed the uprising. While, in Libya, the UN Security Council adopted resolutions that allowed sanctions against the Libyan government, no such resolutions have been adopted yet in Syria.Theory: The principal theory of the analysis is Stephen D. Krasner´s theory on sovereignty.Method: I have researched various resolutions and statements done in the Security Council, together with official statements from the actors, through Hadenius´ motive analysis methodology and Gilje & Grimen and Ödmans theories on hermeneutics.Conclusion: The conclusion of the analysis is that there, in the case of Syria and Libya, are two different parties in the Security Council. One that stands for sovereignty and one that stands for intervention.

This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between municipal policy for housing supply and the planning of new housing in Sweden. Through a case study of Göteborg municipality and a comparative content analysis of Göteborgs policy for housing supply and a number of plans featuring housing the analysis seeks to investigate the effect of policy for housing supply as a tool for securing the demand for housing in the Swedish municipalities. The thesis also seeks to discuss its findings using theory concerning the implementation of policy and the general planning situation for Swedish municipalities today. The result of the analysis shows that most plans fail to regulate most of the content suggested in the policy for housing supply, particularly regarding aspects such as pricing, type of housing and type of ownership. The result also points towards a relationship regarding the prevalence of municipal land contracts and compatibility to policy for housing supply as well as a connection between how extensive the plans are in their proposed land use and their compatibility with policy for housing supply.

One of the areas in which current theory on entrepreneurship is ambiguous is in the explanation of how entrepreneurs act when entering a new market. One author that has attempted to contribute in this area is Saras D. Sarasvathy who has tried to explain the entrepreneurs reasoning through the theory of causation and effectuation. The former refers to a reasoning that takes the effect of an entrepreneurial action as given, while the latter looks upon the effects as uncertain, while only the means are given. With a foundation in this theory, Sarasvathy claims that when entrepreneurs enters a new market the level of environmental uncertainty is so high that reasoning based on causal relationships is rendered useless.

The purpose of this study was to examine and increase the knowledge about the way young, newly graduated social workers view their professional role considering their age and professional experience, how they experience the relation to their clients and colleagues and how these experiences all together affect the way the young social workers handle their professional role. Seven social workers in the ages between 23 and 25, who graduated from Socialhögskolan, Stockholm University, in January 2007, where interviewed. They also answered a questionnaire covering the similar questions as the interview. Little research had previously been made in this particular area, why the triangulation of methods was helpful in analyzing the results, with ata coming from two different resources. To analyze the data a multidimensional theory was used, containing coping theory, an experiential perspective, Antonovskys theory a sense of coherence, cognitive theory and role theory.

This thesis reports on a case study of a forest company, Stora Enso, and their experience from a number of trials and experiments with ash recycling. A literature survey and a total of eleven in-depth interviews were carried out. Ash recycling was found to be the concern of three different divisions of the company. The pulp industry which produces the ash, the forest division which would be responsible for identifying land and spreading the ash, and Stora Research, which has had a major part in the design and implementation of research trials. Lacking an overall company decision on ash recycling the matter is left to the individual divisions.

The purpose of this study was to, using statistical analysis, investigate to what extent families of a different cultural background have participated in family therapy and other family treatment programs at Familjeenheten in Lund. With questions regarding the goals of treatment, and the importance of cultural competence in the treatment process we have let two unit managers comment on the statistics. The population of the study is too small to allow general conclusions to be drawn, however, we have been able to ascertain that families of a different background are over-represented relative to their percentage of Lund´s population. Familjeenheten has no statistical record of ethnicity and the interviewed persons express no certain importance in the families´ cultural origins. They express no need to develop special treatment methods that take the clients´ cultural background in regard as they feel that so many of family issues are universal.

?Children who are a little special and unusual? ? Pre school teachers' conception ofchildren in need of special support.Syftet med studien är att undersöka förskollärares föreställningar kring begreppet Barn ibehov av särskilt stöd i förskolan. Vidare är syftet att undersöka vilka stödinsatser somerbjuds i verksamheten. Studien utgår från följande frågeställningar: Vilka barndefinierar förskollärarna som barn i behov av särskilt stöd? Vilka stödinsatser erbjuderverksamheten barn i behov av särskilt stöd? Hur kan stödinsatserna som erbjuds kopplastill perspektiv på specialpedagogik?Studien genomförs i form av semistrukturerade personliga intervjuer.

Because of my interest and experience within the field of children and teenagers with an antisocial behaviour and who are acting out I wanted to devote my essay to researching these children through the perspective of the teachers. In this essay I, therefore, interviewed 4 teachers with 4-16 years of experience within this occupation. The method I've chosen can be described as qualitative interview with semi-structured questions to enable the teachers to thoroughly describe their answers without diverting from the original question. The questions that form this essay are: What strategies do the teachers possess to enable stability, a safe work environment and enabling knowledge-sharing for the children that are acting out? What kind of tools do the teachers use when they work with children who are acting out? The results were analysed through the theory of socialization, which simplified can be compared with upbringing.