Abstract The Act of Education outlines that good quality in schools and preschools, focusing on continuous improvement, promote children?s learning and this in turn is on of the most important factors for child and youth welfare.This thesis was based on the authors´ pre-understanding that there are opportunities to improvement in the quality of preschools. The focus was on studying how analyses can provide a base for quality work, and the purpose of this study was to identify and describe the analytical methods that can be used in the process of continual improvement for quality development in preschools.A qualitative study was conducted in two preschools that have received quality awards. It was conducted through interviews with the preschool principals and through studies of various documents.In the comparative analysis of theory and empirical data, it was made clear that there was a regular analysing process going on at the investigated preschools and an emphasize of reflection could also be identified. Keywords: Quality development, preschool, analytical methods, processes, reflection .

This essay examines how a group of five youths? self identities are affected by unemploy-ment, contact with the social services and by labour market interventions. In Sweden youth employment has been regarded as a social problem. Arbetslinjen that could be translated into the work model or the work line influences and is a necessity for the Swedish welfare system. With a hermeneutic scientific philosophical position the method used to examine this has been to interview The Youths, in the age of 18-25, individually.

The purpose of the study was to inquire into pupils? attitude towards the current beauty ideal from a gender- and an ethnicity perspective. The study was based on a quantitative survey among 116 young students about prevailing beauty ideal from two different schools in the Stockholm area. The result showed that the students are partially characterized by the stereotyped images of women and men but that there are tendencies towards another view especially among the girls. It is however clear that appearance still is important.

The study examines conceptions of identity among girls with foreign background. The aim was to study how identity is understood by the girls based on ethnicity, images of the origin, the value of gender and the meaning of the family. The theoretical approach was post-colonial theory based on Stuart Hall in combination with gender theory by Yvonne Hirdman. The study was conducted using qualitative individual interviews of open character with six girls. They were aged 17-18 years old and were born in Sweden or had lived here since the age of six.

This essay reflects on the thoughts and experiences of social workers in child protection agencies when it comes to talking about sexuality with teenagers, age 13-20, who is being subjected to inquiry. The research is qualitative and based on five semi-structured interviews. It has a phenomenological position and has been analyzed hermeneutically through cognitive and gender theory. Previous research shows that youths who get in contact with child protection often have issues about their sexuality. This study show that social workers in the agencies lack knowledge about this issue and that they seldom talks about it with the teenagers or their own colleagues.

Today's young people find themselves in an intense media traffic where many messages have a commercial nature. Some such messages are for example different types of advertising in various media and advertising often plays on the uncertainty that may be common in adoles-cence. New interactive media like blogs on the Internet has been established in recent years. Mixed types of media content, advertising with different messages, appear in blogs. Therefore, I am interested in how blogs on the Internet can influence young people's creation of their identity.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine seven public librarians? attitudes towards manga as a new kind of literature in public libraries. Manga is an art form, originally from Japan, but in recent years manga has become very popular in the Western societies. The main issue of this thesis is how the librarians? look at manga and what they think about manga.

Why participate? Many studies focus on explaning non-participation in politics. The political parties are loosing members and the particiaption of young people are given extra attention. This thesis is about young people who do participate in party politics. The question is how they experience their participation and how they feel that they can have a politcal influence by being a member of The Youth section of a political party.

This degree project is based on my personal relation and engagement to the small-scaled cultural landscape. My viewpoint is the village Torpa in Östergötland. My observations of the changes and development together with the stories of the village people has lead me to the questioning about the future prospects of the small-scaled cultural landscape. The rationalization of the society and our urban culture has lead to big changes in the cultural landscape and the people have reduced to a small crowd. Fewer and fewer hands are managing the small-scaled cultural landscape and fewer and fewer young people have connection to this kind of landscape and its management.

Ungdomstjänst består av två delar: icke avlönat arbete och påverkansprogram. I den kommun denna studie är utförd i har socialtjänsten valt att benämna påverkansprogram för kriminalitetssamtal. Syftet med examensarbetet var att undersöka hur ungdomar upplevt dessa samtal och om de förändrat sitt sätt att tänka och sin livsstil som en följd av samtalen. Studiens metod var kvalitativ i form av halvstrukturerade intervjuer. Resultatet analyserades utifrån stämplingsteori och kognitiv teori.

Denna uppsats handlar om ungdomar boendes i de centrala delarna av stadsdelen Skärholmen i relation till områdets territoriella stigma. Undersökningen är av kvalitativ karaktär baserad på djupintervjuer gjorda med sju stycken ungdomar, fyra unga män och tre unga kvinnor, angående den upplevda stigmatiseringen av området. Gemensamt för dessa ungdomar var att alla ville flytta från området och att alla talade om segregering i bemärkelsen avsaknaden av etniska svenskar som en stigmatiseringsaspekt av området. Eftersom den svenska allmänheten ofta utmålar ?invandrartäta områden? som något problematiskt i sig, innebär den höga andelen invandrare i Skärholmen att området stigmatiseras.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the librarian discourses that can be identified in the job advertisements of today, to examine how the discourses differ and also how these discourses might influence the librarian profession and its status. The method of investigation is a qualitative analysis of printed sources, using Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory as well as the theory of professions as a theoretical base. The thesis shows that two discourses can be identified in job advertisements for 2004, one public librarian discourse and one scientific librarian discourse. The major difference between the two discourses are work tasks where the public librarian discourse very often contains areas of responsibility and development work, whereas the scientific librarian discourse often contains administrative work tasks. Other differences include a great demand for driving licences and an interest in children and youth in the public librarian discourse, something which is not asked for at all in the scientific librarian discourse where there is a great demand for knowledge of languages instead.

I denna uppsats beskrivs en grupp hälsingeungdomars bruk av ? och attityd till den egna dialekten. Uppsatsen baseras på en tidigare attitydundersökning genomförd på Gotland varpå analysen i denna undersökning tar spjärn i en enkätundersökning omfattande 70 informanter i åldrarna 15 till 18. Denna delas upp i tre delar: sociologiska bakgrundsfaktorer, bruk och attityd och syftar i huvudsak att ge en indikation på hur ungdomarna använder dialekten i vardagen och på hur deras attityd ser ut gentemot dialekter som fenomen i allmänhet, men hälsingemålet i synnerhet ser ut. Därtill jämförs frågorna som behandlar attitydbegreppet med tidigare undersökning.

The purpose of this essay was to increase the knowledge of and understanding about how teenage girls form their attiutdes towards sexuality and relations. The focus has been on discussing the research-question from four factors of influence chosen by the writers; sexual education, media, friends and family. Our intention with the study was also to take part of the teenagegirls´thoughts, attitudes and opinions in the matter, which is to keep the discussion on a structural level. The study is based on qualitativ interviews, in so called focusgroups, with all toghether eight girls in the ages 14-15 years, students in the ninth grade. The study has a postmodern feministic approach combined with a fenomenological and hermeneutic position.

The aim of this study was to examine the social relationships between children and librarians during reference interviews. Using qualitative interviews with five children's librarians I illustrate attitudes and behaviours during a reference situation which take place in psychological, social and even in pedagogical contexts. The literature review comprises studies of the reference interview with children and youth, a description of interpersonal communication and finally social interaction and dialog between teachers and pupils. The main result of this study was the demonstration of a dichotomy in modes of interpersonal communication. In one mode, the social frame is emphasized.