Officially, the EU gender policy since 2000 has been guided by the strategy of Gender Mainstreaming. This strategy aims to promote gender equality and is informed by a feminist ontology which stipulates that women are structurally subordinated.In this essay, I examine whether the European Commission has adequately adhered to this gender policy in its free trade negotiations with the ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) countries as part of the Cotonou Agreement. As a result of my text analysis of documents related to the negotiations, opinion pieces by interested actors and policy papers of the EU, I find that the Commission does not act in accordance to its stated gender policy.To explain this discrepancy between policy intent and actions, I employ postliberal feminist theory and Robert Putnam's Two-Level Game Theory Model. By analyzing statistics and published research, I explore how gender issues are being represented politically on a domestic and international level.My findings show that a key cause of this discrepancy lies in the low levels of female participation in the political institutions of the EU and ACP; a lack of participation that is especially pronounced in the area of international economics. In explaining the constraints on female participation and the prospects of full implementation of the EU's gender policy in the international political economy, I emphasize the role of culturally and historically gendered institutions..

Over the past few years the Åland islands have attracted growing internationalattention as an example of how to successfully secure the position of a minorityregion, and in the current situation the government of Åland has an intention toextend the efforts of spreading the example of Åland. The purpose of this essay isto shed light on the political discussion about the example of Åland, andinvestigate the underlying political reasons for emphasizing the example of Ålandinternationally. Through interviews with leading politicians on Åland I analyzeÅland as a norm entrepreneur. The research shows that besides altruism, selfinterestis a factor behind emphasizing the example of Åland. The essay showsthat the theory of norm entrepreneurship also can be applied on an autonomousarea, but instead of influencing international organizations themselves, theautonomous area use norm entrepreneurship as a tool for influencing domesticpolitics..

We have made a suggestion for a map based search tool used with a database containinginformation on natural disasters. The database is being developed by NCO (SwedishCentre for Lessons Learned from Incidents & Accidents).We examined both Swedish and international examples of databases on naturaldisasters. The examples that we found were often hard to get the hang of, due to poorcompilation. The problem, that is typical of the international examples, is that the processof data collection is not standardized, as it is performed by different organizations andcompanies with diverse demands on and needs for the database. Therefore, to keep itsymmetrical, there ought to be only one department with the overall responsibility for anational database on natural disasters in Sweden.The natural disaster we based our study on was the flooding in Arvika in the year 2000.We inspected the availability of data about the flooding, and found it to be satisfying.Through contact with the municipality of Arvika, by mail and telephone, and a visit at theArvika municipality office, we acquired reports on the flooding and the joint rescueoperation that followed, and also GIS layers showing the extension of the flooding..

Our aim with this study has been to show the central factors that we consider have had animpact on public libraries in the "information society". We have studied two communities in the south of Sweden, Ronneby and Sölvesborg. These two communities have both started a development to the IT society, a society where information plays a great role, where the technique is the tool that supplies information.Ronneby community had early the aim to be the chief Swedish information center. A priority on information technology has therefore been obvious for them. Sölvesborg community has had another method and time schedule towards the IT society.We have been studying the documentation of aim and the strategy for IT development in different levels.

The main aim of this study is to investigate which structural ideas that lies behind the European Union?s marine operation Atalanta that has been put into motion to counteract piracy and robbery outside the coast of Somalia. In order to do this, we have with the use of the theory of weak states, intervention as well as sovereignty, investigated EU?s document in the question with the use of the idea centered analytical method. The questions that has guided this study, lies both on an empirical and theoretical level.

The aim of this two years master?s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum Studies is to analyse how Swedish cultural history museums work to include LGBTQ-heritage (LGBT is the acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer) in their collections. This work is articulated around three research questions. These interrogate museum practice about collecting and collection management, what it looks like in the already gathered collections as well as the implications such work implies on a broader level. The theoretical framework throughout the paper is gender and LGBT studies as well as queer theory.

Today, we live in a consumption society. We buy products to soothe our needs and desires. Thru material things we can express our own personal identity and shopping is seen more as a pleasure than a need to survive. With the background media- and communication studies, the reason of this study was to explore how blogs as a social medium can influence the consumption ideal in society. With dialogical analysis and semiotic analysis we wanted to see if we could find a specific consumption culture in the content of six blogs we did our studies on. We found that the blogs showed us that there is normal to have everyday luxury and spoil oneself with expensive things.

Ämnet för uppsatsen är att undersöka vilka kommunikationsverktyg gymnasieelever på Kungsmadskolan i Växjö använder sig av för att kommunicera på Internet, vilka motiv som ligger bakom valet av kommunikationsverktyg och det fortsatta användandet. Uppsatsen inriktar sig på fem olika typer av kommunikationsverktyg: chatt, Internetforum, community, Internettelefoni och e-post. Undersökningens syfte är föreståelseinriktat, vilket innebär att vi ämnar att undersöka och förstå vilka motiv som avgör gymnasieelevernas val. Vi har valt en kvalitativ metod för vår undersökning. Vi har genom diskussion med två stycken fokusgrupper indelade i en med bara killar och en med bara tjejer från Kungsmadskolan i Växjö samlat in empirisk data.

Sweden has an environmental goal to achieve until the year 2020. To achieve this goal the construction business has to take an initiative to use the modern techniques that are available to lower the energy consumption I buildings. There?s also a debate going on today regarding the energy demands set by the Swedish government through Boverket, some communities throughout Sweden thinks that the demands are to low and have therefore set up own demands regarding energy in buildings.The possibility to construct energy-saving buildings is today very great, with energy-efficient heating-systems and dense climate envelope. The interest to raise energy-efficient buildings have also increased as a consequence that the population have become more aware about their impact on the environment.

Do teachers? expectations of their pupils become a part in the judgement of which grade a pupil will receive in the end?Several of the polical parties in Sweden have recently been argueing that teachers should be able to give pupils a grade in how they behave in school. Several newspapers also have reported that pupils today have gotten lower results for the last few years and more pupils do not get approved in all subjects. Because many of the studies about pupils results focus on the pupils? skills, I deciced to focus on the teachers part in how a pupil get a better grade or not.In the study I have been looking at a small community in the south of Sweden.

Children who have fled to Sweden, without their parents or guardians, have been a controversial subject during the winter of 2002. Their situations on refugeestations and the responsibiliy by community and the state have been discussed. My composition is about these children. The composition is not about the situations of the children - focus is instead on the people who operate with the children; community, state and organisations. I want to find empirical levels which show what the children associate with.

In the beginning of the 1860s, an important railway was built between Malmö and Stockholm. The railway became one of the most important projects that would influence the entire southern Sweden. The railway line was located to areas outside the ordinary routes and a number of communities were built up along its way.Älmhult was one of the communities that was built up due to the railway. In the beginning there were only a few farms and a station, but a community developed and the village grew. In 1901 the village became a small market town, which was an important event.

The study seeks to from professionals perspectives describe and analyze the beliefs they have about women with intellectual disabilities and their pregnancy and motherhood. We will also discuss and reflect on the possible support that professionals find important for women to handle pregnancy and motherhood. The information has been gathered through interviews with five different professions that have come in contact with the audience in their work. In our material we found three distinctive perspectives: a child´s perspective, a parent´s perspective and a community perspective. From these perspectives, we could find many similarities in the informants´ perceptions, which resulted in different themes.

I en tid där allt fler människor bosätter sig i städer har syftet med denna studie varit att undersöka människors gränsdragningar i det urbana och framför allt vilka gränsteknologier som omgärdar det egna bostadsområdet. För att besvara studiens frågeställningar har Charles Tillys (2004) teori om beständig ojämlikhet och Richard Sennetts (2008) teori om sökandet efter gemenskap i den moderna staden varit givande utgångspunkter. Det fall som studerats är Täby kommun norr om Stockholm och i ett vidare syfte har gränsdragningar i kommunen med hjälp av Blakely & Snyders (1997) teori om Gated Communities jämförts med inhägnade bostadsområdens fysiska murar. Genomförandet har utgjorts av kvalitativa samtalsintervjuer i kombination med en observation på plats vilket lett fram till resultatet att det finns både enande och åtskiljande faktorer som omgärdar Täby. Fysiska gränser har visat sig vara det geografiska avståndet och upplåtelseformer och socialt har viljan av att bo nära familjen visat sig vara en stark faktor till att sociala flyttmönster både skapas och upprätthålls.

The Third International Assessment of Educational Progress (TIMMS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) during the last decades regarding the results of mathematics teaching shows that China have a better performance than Sweden?s.Swedish teacher-guidelines focus on developing student?s individual interest and confidence for mathematics. In the Chinese teaching-guidelines for Mathematics Curriculum Standards, Ordninary Senior Secondary, the focus is given on: Elevate their mathematics literacy necessary for future citizenship and Development of citizen´s qualities (s.3).Teachers are the primary factors that impact teaching and learning of mathematics. Two teachers from Sweden and two from China were interviewed and their methods were compared in my study. The aim of my study was to understand mathematics teaching in China and Sweden.