I media har internationella kunskapsmätningar uppmärktsamamts och visat att Sveriges elever har presterat sämre över tid i specifikt en internationell kunskapsmätning, Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA. I och med att resultaten har fått en negativ inverkan på skolan är det intressant att studera internationella undersökningar. Syftet med studien är att synliggöra varför internationella undersökningar genomförs, motivering till ämnesval och orsaker till elevers resultat i främst två undersökningar, PISA och International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, ICCS. Följande frågeställningar genomsyrar undersökningen:Vad är motiveringen till att internationella undersökningar ska genomföras?Hur motiveras ämnesvalet som testas i dem internationella undersökningarna?Vilka orsaker tar rapporterna upp till elevernas resultat i PISA och ICCS?För att besvara ovanstående frågeställningar används en litteraturstudie för att analysera fyra av skolverkets rapporter.

Calcareous fens constitute a specific habitat which is uncommon in Europe and protected by the EU habitat directive due to its importance to several threatened species. Hagebyhöga in Östergötland is a calcareous fen habitat included in the Natura 2000 Networking Programme. Adjacent to the existing fen, a degraded fen area is situated. The area has been used for agriculture for several years but is now going to be restored to its former state by the county administrative board of Östergötland.When working with restoration of degraded fen areas it is important to aquire knowledge about the chemical soil conditions. Plant growth limited by phosphorus and low fertility are characteristic conditions for calcareous fens, whilst arable land usually is highly fertile and limited by nitrogen.The purpose of this study is to bring forth useful knowledge for restoring the degraded calcareous fen of Hagebyhöga.

Intercropping involving trees is called agroforestry and makes it possible to get higher production for every area unit. The trees can function as food, fodder, fuel, medicine; prevent mark erosion and much more. Agroforestry can also be combined with animal husbandry. The aim of this study was to document the animal production systems used by rural small-scale farmers maintaining ruminants and using agroforestry in the northern province of Rwanda. The farmers using agroforestry is expected to have higher milk yield than average due to homegrown protein. The method used during the study was semi-structural interviews with booth open and closed questions. In order to get in contact with farmers that matched the criteria; small-scaled rural farmers with ruminants and using agroforestry, the ?Vi Agroforestry Programme? (Vi-Life) in Kigali were contacted and the staff worked as supervisors, translators and contact with the farmers throughout the study. During the study nine individual farmers, two cooperatives breeding sheep and one group interview were conducted.

This thesis concerns the term contemporary history and its role in landscape architecture. Today?s contemporary history is defined as the planning and architecture connected to the 60s and 70s, in Sweden carried out as a large scale planning project called ?Miljonprogrammet?, which set out to build one million new residences in ten years. Initially, the term contemporary history and its complex of problem are examined. To deepen the picture of today?s situation, a historical review has been made, starting in early 1900s ending in 2000s concerning how different planning and architectural influences has varied through the years.

My point of origin concerning this thesis was an interest for how school may develop students? reading comprehension. International surveys show that the results for Swedish students? performance regarding reading comprehension have declined and the current curriculum, Lgr-11, emphasizes the importance of incorporating this into all school subjects. The special teacher education programme has raised the awareness concerning the importance of including the students and that learning is achieved in an interactive setting.

In Dar es Salaam, as in many cities in developing countries, green areas are decreasing due to the fact that the growth of buildings, infrastructure and services has become a priority. As the population increases more buildings and infrastructure are needed and much of the building activity takes the form of uncontrolled settlements, which encroaches the public green space. Dar es Salaam has approximately three million inhabitants, of which about 70 percent are living in informal settlements. The aim with this study is to make a design proposal for a park and recreation area where the Msimbazi river basin in the centre of Dar es Salaam is today. The basin consist of a few playing fields, footpaths and some urban farming, but apart from this it mostly consists of unused grasslands, swamps and forests. Because it is an unsafe place and badly connected to the rest of the city infrastructure, it has become a barrier. The annual flood combined with the constant still shallow water creates a good breading ground for malaria mosquitoes.

The forest owner cooperative has observed difficulties with keeping women as forest advisers/ buyers. This is a problem because the organisation wish to have both men?s and women?s qualifications. The organisation?s purpose in their equality and multiplicity plan is to increase the knowledge and awareness of equality and multiplicity, increase the credibility to the members and customers, and to be well prepared for the future need of qualifications. The purpose of this paper is to identify if there are any conditions that may limit female employees at this particular service.

AbstractThis thesis was conducted by Jenny Jansson and Maria Madsen, students at the Faculty ofTechnology and Science and the Innovation and Design Engineer programme at KarlstadUniversity, during the spring 2008. The thesis covers 22,5hp for each student. AnnaHolmquist and Chandra Ahlsell at the company FOLKFORM were the ones who requestedthe theis, their company are located at Stora Skuggan in Stockholm. Tutor for this thesis wasLennar Wihk and the examiner was Monika Jakobsson of Karlstad University.The given assignment came from FOLKFORM and the aim for the thesis was to create afurther development of two already existing lamps from an earlier collection at FOLKFORM,?Jaipur? and ?Modern Times?.

Denna kvalitativa fallstudie undersöker hur svenskämnet på IB-programmet regleras i styrdokumenten, hur styrdokumenten kan omsättas till undervisningspraktik samt vilka fördelar och nackdelar lärare som undervisar i både IB-svenskan och de nationella svenskkurserna Svenska A och Svenska B upplever med IB-svenskan. Fallstudiens metoder är en hermeneutisk styrdokumentsanalys av IB-svenskans styrdokument i relation till kursplanen för Svenska B, en halvstrukturerad observation av en lektion i IB-svenska och halvstrukturerade intervjuer med de två lärare som undervisar i IB-svenska på den undersökta gymnasieskolan. Som analysverktyg nyttjas ramfaktor- samt frirumsmodellen. De slutsatser som kan dras utifrån fallstudien är att de yttre ramarna för IB-svenskan i form av styrdokumenten är snävare än för kursen Svenska B. Kursplanen, betygssystemet, ?Prescribed Book List?, den tillgängliga tiden, elevunderlaget och gruppstorleken utgör alla ramfaktorer som inskränker lärarnas frirum, både det upplevda och reella, i utformningen av och undervisningen i IB-svenska.

Abstract AimThe purpose of this study has been to investigate the possible differences in grades and attitudes towards further studies that can be explained by the student?s level of physical activity. The questions we wanted answers to were:- Does students in more sports-oriented programs have better grades than students in more theoretical programs?- Is there a relationship between physical activity and study-results?- Are there any differences in attitudes towards further studies for students at the different programs?- Which other variables could be affecting the students grades?Method The extent of this study has included 3 municipal schools and 6 classes (2 from each school) ? in all 119 students and 6 teachers. 3 different social sciences programs have participated ? two sports-oriented and one without any sports-oriented concentration .

Title: Diversities of diversity - fluctuating talk, meaning and practice of diversitySeminar date: 06.02.08 Course: Masters thesis in Business Administration, Programme for Managing People, Knowledge and Change, 15 University Credit Points (15 ECTS). Authors: Björt Ólafsdóttir & Clarissa Sia Choon YenAdvisors: Mats Alvesson & Susanne LundholmFive key words: Diversity, Discourses, Hypocrisy, Comparison, National contextPurpose: To identify and compare discourses around diversity within two companies operating in two distinct national contexts. One originated from and still situated in Iceland, while the other is a subsidiary for Asia-Pacific market in Singapore with American values from its headquarters in United States. We wish to explore what are the meanings and implications of diversity for the employees of each company, how their discourses on diversity reflect hypocrisy in the organizations and if and how national context has an impact on discourse on diversity.Methodology: Interviews were conducted, transcribed and codified. Comparison and evaluation of the different discourses were examined around diversity and in the talk of interviewees within the two companies.

Title: The role of social media on today?s markets ? Companies? desire to understand theircustomersAuthors: Kristoffer Avci-Nåmark & Patrik WidlundBackground: The markets of today are characterized by dynamic conditions because of thecontinuous change in consumer preference. Due to this, the interaction between the company and its consumers is gaining importance as companies find the need to increase their knowledge about the market. Out of this need social media has emerged as a tool forcompanies to improve their communication with customers. The popularity of social media isincreasing at a rapid rate and sites such as Facebook now has around 500 million usersworldwide.

70 percent of Sweden´s municipalities say they do not have vacant rental flats and a shortage is emerging, during the same time are 1.1 million young people ready to enter the housing market. In order to curb the housing shortage, have the Swedish politicians since the postwar period chosen to stimulate the market with subsidies to increase new production and to control that what is built is in the right direction. The construction industry is perceived as conservative, and many argue that the state keeps it under their wings, which has led to that the development not has progressed in the same way as other, non-subsidy regulated industries.The purpose of ours bachelor thesis is to provide an overall picture and describe the underlying problems of the housing shortage at the rental market. In addition, we want to present theories about where possible actions could take place in the market, by illuminate the problem from the differente actors perspective.To fulfill our purpose and provide a deeper understanding of the problem we have chosen a qualitative approach. We interviewed nine different actors on the Swedish housing market, two managers, two to representatives of Halmstad Municipality, a representative for the construction operators and four different interest groups.

Background: Today, the tourism sector is one of the economically fastest growing sectors in the world. Volunteer travel is a type of service that is gaining in popularity and a number of tour operators organize these trips. Few aid agencies engaged in volunteer activities and therefore the interest in volunteer travel is caught by tour operators. These tourists travel in small groups and interact with locals. Today fifty million children in Africa are orphaned and Africans struggling with the care of these children by founding orphanages.Research questions:What does volunteers contribute with during their stay at orpahanges?What view does volunteers and orphanages have on volunteer tourism?Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the positive and the negative effects that volunteer tourism contributes to orphanages.Method: The study is based on a qualitative approach with semi-and unstructured interviews, observations, and email interviews.

This project was started within the Market-Design programme of Elforsk, with the aim of developing representative test systems of Swedish distribution networks. Using such test systems as a basis for reliability and customer interruption cost calculations makes it feasible to analyse the network tariff regulation of Swedish power  istribution companies. In particular, it enables studies of the incentives for companies to invest in system reliability. Until now, the available test systems are either not representative of Swedish conditions, or too small in scale and limited in function.Within this project we have created two test systems. In order to represent the diversity of actual Swedish distribution networks, we have created one test system for urban environments and another for rural environments.