Örebro UniversityDepartment of Social SciencesSociology and social psychology, Continuation course, 61-90 p.Essay 15 p, Spring -08.Title: ?Youth (work)seekers?Author: Karolina LindellAbstractThis essay focuses on young people?s social background when they apply for their first job. I have interviewed four young people from a small town in Sweden, to see how social background and identity affects their vital conditions in general. I?m interested understanding the relationship between structure and agency.

Abstract (magisteruppsats, 61-80p)This paper is concerned with the national sentiments in the Federal State of Germany,regarding the east- and west-German cleavages, since the unification of the country in 1990.The point of departure is the nationalistic theory crafted together by the scholar AnthonyDavid Smith, which implies an ethno-symbolistic perspective on the dynamics of nations.The main question in the paper is to which extent you can consider the East- and WestGermans to be a unity, considering the past and the forty-year-division. For this reason theauthor basically uses two different sources: scientific books and the German journal DerSpiegel.Founded on Smith's theory, the study contains a broad explanation for national identities incontemporary states, which ranges from pre-modern times, when the ethnic communities werecreated, to the national world of today.The discontinuity of the German case, represented by the separation 1949-90 of the Germannation into two entirely different societies, makes it possible to draw conclusions about whichfactor that has the pivotal impact on national identities.The result turns out to be that the national historical core-values and symbols of the currentGerman state and nation are more profound than the splitting national sentiments. Thus theGerman nation is likely to recover from its Cold War break-up.Keywords: German unification, A. D. Smith, Nation and nationalism, National identity, DerSpiegel.

This study focuses on the use of animals in social work from the perspective of social workers. The purpose of this study is to examine social workers? experiences of animal assisted social work and how social workers view the integration of animals in various fields of social work. The research is based on a qualitative method and four semi-structured interviews were conducted with social workers. The theories incorporated in the study are Attachment Theory and Sense of Coherence (SOC).The following results are presented: Social workers are considered to have a more comprehensive understanding of clients compared to their associates who do not hold a degree in Social Work.

Syftet med studien var att analysera biståndsutredningar utifrån ett genusperspektiv för att undersöka om det finns några skillnader både språkligt och innehållsmässigt utifrån kön. Vårt gemensamma intresse för genusfrågor och socialt arbete för individer med funktionsnedsättningar är anledningen till valet av studiens inriktning. Karin Barrons teori om att kvinnor och män med funktionsnedsättningar inte tilldelas kön har inspirerat till studien.Med hjälp av socialkonstruktivism och ett genusperspektiv har empirin analyserats med en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Studiens empiri består av biståndsutredningar enligt Lagen om stöd och service för vissa funktionshindrade (SFS 1993:387) angående ansökan om personlig assistans. Utredningarna kommer ifrån en relativt stor kommun.Resultatet visar att språket i biståndsutredningarna synliggör kön och skapar olika bilder av kvinnor och män med funktionsnedsättningar.

Our purpose with this study was to look at the connection between social capital and integration. Particularly if meetings between people from different cultures can increase social capital and in that way affect integration. We start by identifying the social integration perspective we are going to use through out the study and then we introduce social capital theory as a way of narrowing down the field even more. The study was done through six semi structured interviews. We interviewed three women that was established in the Swedish society and three women that had immigration background.

Information technology and globalization has led to an increasing competition and service production has been more and more independent of locations. This has made a market of outsourced telephone costumer service possible. Due to high establishment the market has been saturated and with that price has sunk. Customer companies have the last few years got more negative to outsourcing of their telephone customer service as they through operating the customer service internally want to get closer to their customers.In the empirical study the writers try to figure out which companies the callcenters should try to aim towards to get long and profitable cooperation. This will be done through deducing guiding principles from theories about how different factors around companies costumer service should look like.

The aim of this master thesis is to obtain a greater understanding of childrens choice of favourite books, insight in their reading experiences and their thoughts about the reading of these books. We also want to investigate if, and if so, how childrens librarians obtain knowledge of the childrens reading preferences and reading experiences and how they use this knowledge in their work to stimulate childrens reading. To reach our aim we have been carrying out quantitative interviews with six children aged nine to ten years and three childrens librarians working in public libraries. As a theoretical starting point we use the reader-oriented theory and Chambers Reading circle, which states that support from adults is the most important factor in the childs reading process. The empirical results are linked to theories and earlier research and are analysed under four different themes.

This Bachelor-paper is an investigation of organisational flexibility in Swedish andPolish television companies. The essay is based on four main questions which is thananalysed by looking at different categories that defines a flexible organisationalstructure.The questions are:? What is the internal and external perceived judgment about the TV-channelsorganisational flexibility?? What are the differences regarding Public service channels in Sweden andPoland as well as the differences between commercial channels?? What are the differences regarding public service- and commercial TVchannelsin Sweden as well as in Poland? Which of the companies are considered being the stronger and the weakest inan organisational flexibility point of view?In order to answer these questions have we used following main theories.? Readiness for business process reengineering - Abdolvand, N. & Albadvi, A.& Ferdowsi, Z (2008)? Decisionprocess - Jacobsen D.I.

Social media has become an important marketing and communication tool worldwide, mostly through the largest social platforms Facebook and Twitter. With two-way communication via Internet companies has gotten the opportunity to interact and communicate directly with their customers. Facebook has been the focus point through the study because it has shown to be the most efficient and frequently used platform for communication. Our study aimed to confirm how communication via social media actually looks like. To be able to reach the best results, we have conducted the study from a phenomenological approach, which means; usage of qualitative semi-structured interviews to reflect the respondents experience on the phenomenon social media as a communication tool. Social media has shown to be a great way of communicating externally for companies who are willing to spend time engaging in the platform.

Sydafrika övergick från att styras av en förtryckande regim till att bli en demokrati 1994. South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) som historiskt sett användes som ett propagandaverktyg för apartheid-regeringen är idag Sydafrikas public service-företag med uppdrag att vara en del av demokratiprocessen. Public service hävdar att dess uppdrag är att återskapa mänsklig värdighet och bygga en gemensam framtid för alla sydafrikaner. Syftet med denna undersökning är att undersöka hur public service i Sydafrika presenterar kvinnor och män som källor i nyhetsjournalistiken. Uppsatsen undersöker vilka ämnen som dominera, vilka källor som får uttala sig och hur kvinnor och män kommer till tals.

The aim of this study is to examine how social workers and pree-school teachers resonate about their experiences of cooperation with each other, in relation to maltreated children and the duty to report. Several studies show that there is a difference between how many children that is suspected of maltreatment and how many that are reported to social service. In Sweden, pre-school staff are obliged to notify the suspicion of child abuse according to 14: 1 SoL, but previous research indicates that the obligation to declare is not used to the extent that it should. One reason for the low notification rate is  the interaction between preschool and the social services shortcomings.Therefore, we believe it is relevant to examine how the cooperation really looks like between the organizations, when the child is being abused or at risk of suffering. The results of the study are based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with four preschool teachers and four administrators.

Social enterprises make up one of the groups of participants that provide welfare services financed by public funding. The object of this study is to describe and analyze from a theoretical point of view which conditions, in what fields, by which division of responsibility and finally through what decisions these social enterprises are allocated a place in the market for social welfare services. The company that has been the object of study offers services in the field of social welfare and in employment. In the study a triangulation of qualitative methods has been used: studies of literature on the subject, recurrent interviews and observations and also reviews of documents. The results have been analyzed from theories on the space available on the market for social services, on social economy and on social capital in the form of strong, weak and bridging bonds.

The purpose of this essay is to explore the social services work with crime victims in Sweden, according to Chapter 5, § 11 of the Social Services Act. The study examined how social workers define the victim and assessing and prioritizing victims' needs. It has also been central to study how social workers interpret and understand the regulation of social services responsible for crime victims.Qualitative interviews with 18 social workers is the basis for the study. The analysis of the social services work with victims based in the above-mentioned interviews. The interviews analyzed using the sociology of law theory.

This study explores how online television works and how it is integrated with social media such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Through three qualitative interviews with representants from different fields of work regarding online television, we have concluded how online television is being used in Sweden today and concludes with examples of what the future of online television could look like. Representatives from the following companies have been interviewed: SBS Media Group Sweden, Strix Television and Mediamätning i Skandinavien. The use of social media for marketing of online television is a fact for the companies in this study. However, the result of the study shows that theres room for development in the integration between online television and social media.

The purpose of this study is to identify how the needs, demands and preferences for a certain service appear among University students in Kalmar. This is necessary to examine in order to create and design a possible service that will solve the problem with the University students eating habits.This study is based on a qualitative method with quantitative elements. The qualitative method contains of three focus group discussions. The quantitative method contains of a questionnaire. All respondents in this study fits in the target group.One important conclusion that we have stated after the investigation of this study, is that the nature of this problem seems to differ from person to person.